‘The best of wives and mothers,’ said Mr. Sternworth with feeling. ‘What a true lady and good Christian she was! If she had lived, there would have been a different household.’
‘Daresay, daresay,’ said Mr. Rockley meditatively. ‘Precious rascals, the sons; hadn’t much of a chance, perhaps. Wild lot here in those days, eh? So I see you have had that mound moved from the back of the cellar.’
‘We couldn’t think what it was,’ said Mr. Effingham. ‘The excavation must have been made long ago.’
‘Not heard the story, then? Wonderful how some secrets are kept. Never mind, Sternworth, I won’t tell Captain Effingham the other one. Randal Warleigh, the eldest son, was one of the wildest devils that even this country ever saw. Clever, handsome, but dissipated; reckless, unprincipled, in fact. Old man and he constantly quarrelling. Not that the Colonel was all that a father should have been, but he drank like a gentleman. Never touched anything before dinner. He finished his bottle of port then, and sometimes another, but no morning spirit-drinking. Would as soon have smoked a black pipe or worn a beard. It came to this at last, that when he went away he locked up sideboard and cellar, forbidding the housekeeper to give his sons any liquor.’
‘The Colonel left home for a week in Yass, when Randal arrived with some cattle and two fellow-roysterers. No grog available. Naturally savage. Swore he would burn the old rookery down before he would submit to be treated so. Behaved like a madman. Ordered up his men, got picks and shovels, dug a tunnel under the cellar wall, and helped himself, ad libitum, to wine and spirits.’
‘The governor’s a soldier,’ he said; ‘I’ve given him a lesson in civil engineering. Here’s his health, boys!’
‘What an outrage!’ said Mr. Effingham.
‘You would have said so if you had seen Warbrok when the old gentleman returned. Every soul on the place—all convict servants in those days—had been drunk for a week. Cellar half-emptied, house in confusion. Randal and his friends had betaken themselves, luckily, the day before, to the Snowy River, or there might have been murder done. As it was——’
‘I think we may spare our friend any more chronicles of the good old times, Rockley; let us go down and see the dairy cows, those that Harry O’Desmond sold him.’
‘All right!’ said his friend good-humouredly, accepting the change of subject. ‘I daresay Harry O’ had his price, but they are the best cattle in the country.’