“Oh, you know what I mean, father! so don’t pretend you don’t. I’m not growing cheeky because things have gone well lately; but really there’s only enough managing to keep you in exercise. It will half break my heart to go away, but what’s the use of settling down on a small comfortable place like this? And how can I feel that I’m doing the best for the family, when I hear of fellows like Persse, and Grantley, and Philipson taking up that new country beyond the Barcoo by the thousand square miles; splendid downs covered with blue grass and Mitchell grass? Grand water, too, when you come upon it. Think what all that country will be worth in a few years.”
“I understand you, my boy,” said the proud father, while a sudden emotion stirred his heart, as he remembered the days of his own youth, when he too had nourished the same high thoughts of adventure and discovery, and had played his part amid the dangers and privations of frontier life. “You can talk it over with Mr. Hope. We’ll see what can be done.”
“I suppose,” said Hubert, after a while, “when you’ve been up a week or ten days, and I’ve talked over everything with mother and the girls, from the regatta to the last new waltz step, I may as well take my holiday. I haven’t had one for three years. I begin to forget what the sea looks like, and I think a month in the ‘big smoke’ and a few new ideas will do me no harm.”
“Have your holiday, by all means, and enjoy it too, my boy. Thank God, it is not a question of money now. I have the fullest belief in the sanitary value, mentally, of a trip to the metropolis now and then.”
“Thank you, father. I’m sure it will brush me up a little; besides, I want to go to the Lands Office for certain reasons. I want, above all, to have a good talk with this Mr. Barrington Hope that I’ve heard so much about.”
“You’ll find him an uncommon sort of person. The more you see of him, the more you’ll like him, I feel certain. He is just the man I should like you to make a friend of. Try and get him to return with you, if he can spare the time.”
After the tea-things were cleared away, and the large, steadfast, satisfactory table was left free for reading, writing, or needlework—for all of which purposes it was equally well adapted—what a season of rational enjoyment set in! The book box had been opened before. The beautiful new uncut volumes, the titles of which were received with exclamations of joy, were placed upon a table. The collection of new music was inspected, Linda going there and then to the piano and dashing off a waltz; making, besides, a running commentary upon half-a-dozen songs which she and Laura were going to learn directly there was a minute to spare. Mr. Stamford took his accustomed chair, and devoted himself to the Sydney Morning Herald. Mrs. Stamford resumed the needlework which is apparently a species of Penelope’s web for all mothers of families, while Hubert and Laura, somewhat apart from the rest, kneeling on their chairs as if they had been children again, made a cursory examination of the new books, exclaiming from time to time at passages or illustrations.
“I feel inclined not to go to Sydney till after I’ve read most of these books,” said Hubert; “only that would make it so late. But it seems a pity to leave such a lot of splendid reading. Certainly there’s the Public Library in Sydney, but I hardly ever go in there, because I find it so hard to get out again. I did stay there once till the lamps were lit. I had gone in for a few minutes after breakfast.”
“What a queer idea!” said Laura, laughing outright. “How strange it must have felt to have lost a whole day in Sydney. Never mind, Hubert! There are a good many young men to whom it would not occur to spend a whole day in a library, public or private. Everything in moderation, though. You must have another station at your back before you can read all day long.”
“Please God, we’ll have that too,” replied he with a cheery smile, “or else the new country will be taken up very fast. I don’t think Windāhgil will see me after next shearing; that is if the governor doesn’t forbid it.”