By the time the train of reflection induced by this consideration had come to an end, the river was forded—tolerably high indeed; so much so as to cause the new domestic some natural misgivings, but the strong, temperate horses breasted the swirling current, and landed them safely, under Hubert’s experienced guidance, upon the pebbly beach of the farther shore.
“So far, so good,” said the charioteer; “we couldn’t have done that yesterday, and it’s not every pair of horses that would fancy all that rushing and bubbling of the stream. Don’t you remember Mr. Round nearly making a mess of it last year at night in this very place, with the governess and all the children too? He had a pretty bad quarter of an hour after he broke his pole. Now look at the grass, that’s something like, isn’t it?”
Mr. Stamford had seen such things before in his pastoral experience. Not for the first time did he look upon the marvellous transformation wrought in “dry country” by forty-eight hours’ rain. But he could not avoid an exclamation of surprise when he gazed around him. Was this the same place—the same country even, which he had driven over so lately to catch the train, with the self-same pair of horses too?
Then the river trickled in a thin rivulet from one pond to another in the wide, half-dry bed of the stream; then the dusty banks were lined with dead sheep; the black-soiled alluvial flat was innocent of grass in root or stalk or living herbage as the trampled dust of a stockyard. Now a thick, green carpet of various verdure covered all the great meadow as far as eye could see, and brought its bright green border to the very verge of the sand and shingle of the river shore.
The half-flood which had resulted from the rainfall nearer the source had swept away the carcases of the sheep and cattle and deposited all saddening souvenirs of the drought amid the reed beds of the lower Mooramah. All was spring-like and splendidly luxuriant, though as yet but in the later autumn season. It was a new land, a new climate, a region recovered from the waste.
CHAPTER VI
In ten minutes Mr. Stamford was deposited safely at the home which he had quitted with such gloomy forebodings, such dreadful doubt and uncertainty. Then he had asked himself, ‘Should he be enabled to call it his own on returning? Was not Ruin’s knell already sounding in his ears?’
A few short weeks had elapsed, and how different was the outlook! When he beheld again the true and tender wife, the loving daughters, the joyful children, his heart swelled nigh to bursting. An unspoken prayer went up to heaven that he might ever remain worthy of the unselfish love, the trusting faith which had been his since first he had acquired a household of his own. How unworthy are the best of men of such treasures—the purest, the richest, which are granted to mortal man!
When his affairs were at the worst, had he not always known where to receive wise counsel, tender consolation, heartfelt sympathy? When a ray of sunshine broke through the cloud-wrack which environed his fortunes, had not a double brilliancy been added to it by those loving hearts which took their colour so readily from his every mood? Now all was joy, peace, magical transformation. The storm-clouds had passed over, the menacing powers had vanished like evil dreams. All was hope and sanguine trust in the future. He was a monarch restored to his throne, a leader once more in front of his faithful band, the head of a household which care and pain, in certain forms, could never more approach.
“So, father, you have deigned to return to us!” said Mrs. Stamford, smiling the bright, loving welcome which had never failed her husband. “We began to think that the ‘pleasures and palaces’ were becoming too much for the ‘home, sweet home’ side of the question. Didn’t we, Laura? But how wonderfully well you look, darling! We are all ready to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Barrington Hope, as it seems he has wrought all these miracles.”