“Home, sweet home!” sang Linda, as they drove up to the well-known white gate. “How lovely the garden looks, and everything about the dear old place is flourishing; even the turkeys have grown up since we left. I feel as if I could go round and kiss everything—the very posts of the verandah. That is the advantage of going away. I really think it is one’s duty to do so; it makes you value your home so when you come back.”
“I shall have no curiosity about the great world for a year at least,” said Laura. “It will take us nearly that time to read all the new books; and to properly enjoy the garden, I am going to have a fernery of my own. I bought the Fern World out of my own money, and somebody—I forget who it was—promised to send me some rare New Zealand and South Sea Island ferns. After all, the pleasures of country life are the best, I really do believe; they are so calm and peaceful and yet satisfying.”
That first meal, lunch or dinner, as it might happen to be, in the old familiar room, was an unmixed delight to all. The two servants, having just returned, had exerted themselves to prepare a somewhat recherché repast for the family, to whom they were attached, and whose return they hailed with honest expressions of welcome. The cookery and arrangements generally met with special commendation, while in the intervals of talking, laughing, and sudden exclamations of delight, Linda repeated her conviction that she had never enjoyed eating and drinking so much since she left Windāhgil.
Immediately after this necessary performance, Hubert and Mr. Stamford betook themselves to one of the outlying portions of the run, where the son was anxious for his father to behold the success of a new dam lately constructed. This piece of engineering had “thrown back” the water of a creek nearly two miles, thus affording permanent sustenance for a large flock of sheep.
“These weaners were formerly obliged to come in to the frontage, you remember governor, where they were always mixing with the other sheep. The water dried up regularly about this time. Now they can stay here till next shearing, and I think the country suits them better, too.”
“They are looking uncommonly well,” said Mr. Stamford, running his eye over a flock of fine, well-grown young sheep, which were just moving out to grass after their noonday rest. “They ought to cut a first-rate fleece this year.”
“Yes; and the wool is so clean,” said Hubert. “There is nothing like having your sheep within fences; no running about with dogs and shepherds; they don’t get half the dust and sand into their fleeces. But I’m afraid this is about the last improvement Windāhgil wants doing to it. It’s getting too settled and finished. How I should like to tackle a big, wild, half-stocked run in new country, with no fencing done, and all the water to make!”
“You must bide your time, my boy,” said Mr. Stamford, with a serious face. “It will come some day—in another year or two, perhaps. You mustn’t be in too great a hurry to leave us all. Windāhgil is not such a bad place.”
“On the contrary, it’s getting too good altogether. There’s only half enough work, and next to no management required. Why, you could do all the work yourself, governor, with a steady working overseer!”
“Thank you, my boy, for the compliment,” said Mr. Stamford, taking off his hat.