“It quite brought back,” she averred, “the old days of love in a cottage, with all their precious memories.”
Gradually, and unobtrusively, was the master of the establishment enabled to compass these and other desirable repairs and refittings. All things that had become shabby were dismissed or replaced after the same piecemeal manner. As time wore on, the process ceased to alarm his wife or children, more especially as, aided by the bounteous season and Hubert’s ceaseless energy, the general prosperity of the station was marked and gratifying.
The increase of the stock was unexampled. The anxious, toilsome period of shearing was passed successfully.
The new washpen answered beyond the most sanguine anticipation. The clip was heavy, and “got up” so as almost to resemble raw silk—a pardonable exaggeration—so free from dust and all contamination had sleepless vigilance and care on Hubert’s part “turned it out.” The crop was as “high as the fence,” Maurice averred, and the haystack, consequently, a colossal and imposing pile of fragrant fodder. The spring was sufficiently showery to lay the dust and keep the matted grass green at the roots. Water was abundant, both “out back” as well as on the frontage. “All went merry as a marriage bell,” and when the last high-piled waggon-load had moved slowly away, on which was imprinted “Windāhgil, First Combing, 348,” with other suggestive and satisfactory legends, Mr. Stamford put his arm round his wife’s waist, and remarked, “My dear, I think a trip to Sydney would do you and the girls so much good. As I am compelled to see Mr. Hope on business, we may as well all go together.”
CHAPTER VII
The thrill of pleasure with which this proposal was received showed itself in the flushing cheeks and brightened eyes of Laura and her sister—while upon Mrs. Stamford’s features an almost pathetic expression appeared, as of a revelation of joy sudden and unhoped-for. “You are so kind, Harold; but, oh! are you prudent? Think of the expense—new dresses, new everything, indeed! Why it seems an age since I saw Sydney!”
“Think of the clip, Mrs. Stamford,” retorted her husband. “Think of the lambs, think of the fat sheep ready for market. Your journey to town will be the merest trifle of expenditure compared to what we can lawfully and reasonably afford. I speak in sober earnest. Besides, the Intercolonial Exhibition is open. The girls may never have such another chance. Hubert must stay at home for fear of bush fires. He shall have his holiday when we return. So, girls, the great Windāhgil migration is settled.”
The departure for the metropolis of a family that has long dwelt in the “bush,” or veritable far country division of Australian life, is an event of no ordinary magnitude.
Not that the conditions of their rural life are so widely different from those in England. There is the country town within reasonable distance, to which visits are by no means infrequent. There reside the clergymen, lawyers, doctors, bankers, teachers, and tradespeople, the chief component parts of rural society—as in England. There are also various retired non-combatants, decayed gentry and others, the poor and proud section—as in Europe. The squirearchy is represented by large-acred, wealthy personages, who have either acquired or inherited estates, exceeding ten- or twenty-fold in value those of average proprietors—as in Europe. These great people are frequently absent, but contribute fairly by a higher scale of expenditure, often comprising picture-galleries, and valuable collections of objets d’art, generally to the mental advancement of the neighbourhood. It is not to be supposed, either, that they are for the most part uneducated or unrefined.
It follows, therefore, that even when deprived of access to metropolitan luxuries, the families of rural colonists are not wholly without intellectual privileges, invariable as has been the custom of the British novelist to depict them as living a rude, unpolished, and wholly unlettered life.