Across the broad verandah the members of the family, with their visitors, were seated, behind them the retainers. A table covered with a cloth was placed before Mr. Effingham, with the family Bible and a prayer-book of the Church of England.
As he made commencement, and with the words, ‘When the wicked man turneth away,’ the congregation stood up, it was a matter of difficulty with Mrs. Effingham to restrain her tears. How the well-remembered sentences seemed to smite the rock of her well-guarded emotions as with the rod of the Prophet! She trembled lest the spring should break forth from her o’erburdened heart, whelming alike prudence and the sense of fitness. The eyes of the girls were dewy, as they recalled the white-robed, long-remembered pastor, the ivy-covered church, storied with legend and memorial of their race, the villagers, the friends of their youth, the unquestioned security of position, long guaranteed by habit and usage, apparently unalterable. And now, where stood they, while the sacred words proceeded from the lips of the head of the household, whom they had followed to this far land?
In a ‘lodge in the wilderness,’ a speck in a ‘boundless contiguity of shade,’ with its unfamiliar adjuncts and a company of strangers—pilgrims and wayfarers—even as they. For a brief interval the suddenly realised picture of distance and isolation was so real, the momentary pang of bitterness so keenly agonising, that more than one sob was heard, while Annabel, whose feelings were less habitually under control, threw her arms round Jeanie’s neck (who had nursed her as a babe) and wept unrestrainedly.
No notice was taken of this natural outburst of emotion. Jeanie, with unobtrusive tenderness and unfailing tact, comforted the weeping girl. Solemnly the words of the service sounded from her father’s lips, while the ordinary responses concealed the occasional sobs of the mourner for home and native land. She had unconsciously translated the unspoken words of more disciplined hearts.
Gradually, as the service continued, the influences of the scene exercised a healing power upon the group—the fair, golden day, the tender azure of the sky, the wandering breeze, the waters of the lake lapping the shore, the whispering of the waving trees, even the hush of
Beautiful silence all around,
Save wood-bird to wood-bird calling,
commenced insensibly to soothe the hearts of the exiles. Gradually their faces recovered serenity, and as the repetitions of belief and trust, of submission to a Supreme Benevolence, were repeated, that ‘peace which passeth all understanding,’ an indwelling guest with some, a memory, a long-forgotten visitant with others, appeared for a space to have enveloped the little company on that day assembled at Warbrok.
The simply-conducted service was verging on conclusion when a stranger appeared upon the track from the high road. In bushman’s dress, and carrying upon his back the ordinary knapsack (or ‘swag’) of the travelling labourer, he strode along the path at a pace considerably higher in point of speed than is usual with men who, as a class, being confident of free quarters at every homestead, see no necessity for haste. A tall, powerfully-built man, his sun-bronzed countenance afforded no clue to his social qualification.
Halting at the garden gate, he stood suddenly arrested as he comprehended the occupation of the assembled group. He looked keenly around, then easing the heavy roll by a motion of his shoulders, awaited the final benediction.