The half-reckless, defiant tone was replaced by a quiet bearing and respectful manner. The expression of the face was changed. The eyes, keen and restless, had lost their savage gleam. An alert step, a ready discharge of every duty, with the smallest details of which he seemed instinctively acquainted, had succeeded the lounging bearing of the preceding day. Wilfred thought he had never seen a man so markedly changed in so short a time.
‘You both seem improved, Dick. I suppose the morning air has had something to do with it.’
‘Yes, sir—thank God,’ said he, ‘I’m always that fresh after a good night’s sleep, when I’ve had a bit of a spree, that I could begin again quite flippant. Old Tom had a goodish cheque this time, and was at it a week afore I came in. He looked rather shickerry. But he’s as right as a toucher now, and you won’t lose no calves while he’s here, I’ll go bail. He can stay in my hut. My old woman and he knowed one another years back, and she’ll cook and wash for him, though they do growl a bit at times.’
It soon became apparent, making due deductions for periodical aberrations, that Mr. Effingham possessed in Dick Evans and Tom Glendinning two rarely efficient servitors. They knew everything, they did everything; they never required to be reminded of any duty whatsoever, being apparently eager to discover matters for the advantage of the establishment, in which they appeared to take an interest not inferior to that of the proprietor. Indeed, they not infrequently volunteered additional services for their employer’s benefit.
The season had now advanced, until the fervid height of midsummer was near, and still no hint of aught but continuous prosperity was given to the emigrant family.
Though the sun flamed high in the unspecked firmament, yet from time to time showers of tropical suddenness kept the earth cool and moist, refreshing the herbage, and causing the late-growing maize to flourish greenly, in the dark unexhausted soil. Their wheat crop had been reaped with but little assistance from any but the members and retainers of the family. And now a respectable stack occupied jointly, with one of oaten hay, the modest stack-yard, or haggard, as old Tom called it.
The cheese operations developed, until row upon row of rich orange-coloured cheeses filled the shelves of the dairy.
The garden bore token of Andrew’s industry in the pruned and renovated fruit trees, which threw out fresh leaves and branches; while the moist open season had been favourable to the ‘setting’ of a much more than ordinary yield of fruit. The crops of vegetables, of potatoes, of other more southern esculents looked, to use Andrew’s phrase, ‘just unco-omon.’ Such vegetables, Dick confessed, had not been seen in it since the days of the Colonel, who kept two gardeners and a spare boy or two constantly at work. Gooseberries, currants, and the English fruits generally, were coming on, leading to the belief that an extensive jam manufacture would once more employ Jeanie and the well-remembered copper stew-pan—brought all the way from Surrey.
The verandah was once more a ‘thing of beauty’ in its shade of ‘green gloom.’ The now protected climbers had glorified the wreathed pillars; again gay with the purple racemes of the Wistaria and the deep orange flowers of the Bignonia venusta. The lawn was thickly carpeted with grass; the gravelled paths were raked and levelled by Andrew, whenever he could gain an hour’s respite from dairy and cheese-room.
The increase of the cattle had been of itself considerable, while the steers of the Donnelly contingents fattened on the newly matured grasses, which now commenced to send forth that sweetest of all summer perfumes, the odour of the new-mown meadows.