“I am aware, my dear Thornton,” he wrote, “that in a general way it is thought better that a newly arrived young gentleman should work out his own destiny in Australia—that after repeated falls and losses he learns to run alone, and may be trusted henceforth to move more circumspectly than if he had been ‘shepherded’ from the first. But I dissent from this theory. The falls are often serious; after some losses there is nothing left. I prefer a partner, such a one as I had myself thirty years ago if possible. There ought to be a few well-bred youngsters knocking about who know everything that can be known about stations and stock but are held back for want of capital. Such a one could supply the experience, while Frank Delamere would find the capital. The old joke used to be that in two or three years the new arrival had acquired all the experience and the colonist all the cash. This reads smartly, but is false enough, like many bons mots both in the Old World and the New. Where was there ever a better man than my old overseer, Jock Maxwell, afterwards partner, and now deservedly pastoral magnate? He could work twice as hard as I ever did; he knew station life ab ovo. He was honest to a fault. He—but I always prose when I get on this topic. It is enough to say that I had sufficient sense to form this estimate of his character and act upon it, ‘whereby,’ as Captain Cuttle has it, I am now writing from Greyland Manor, near Glastonbury Thorn, instead of being a white slave in a counting house, or the half-pay pauper generally known as a retired military officer.
“Therefore—a convenient, if illogical expression—I charge you to procure a good steady ‘pardner’ for Frank, who will see that his ten thousand, perhaps more, if need be, is not wasted or pillaged before he cuts his wisdom teeth as a bushman. Draw at sight, when investments are made with your consent.—Yours ever sincerely,
“Robert Delamere.”
#/
This was the business on which the three men met on this day at the Austral Agency Company’s office. Before this momentous interview a certain amount of preliminary work had been done. Letters and ‘wires’ had circulated freely between Windāhgil, Sydney and Melbourne, from which city the newly-fledged intending purchaser had recently been summoned. Permission had been reluctantly granted by Mr. Stamford, who foresaw years of separation from the son and heir, who had never cost him an anxious moment as to his conduct. The affair was tearfully discussed by Mrs. Stamford and the girls, who thought life would no longer be worth living at Windāhgil when Hubert’s merry voice and unfailing good spirits were withdrawn.
“Why do people want to change and alter things—to go away and bring sorrow and misery and destruction—no, I mean desolation—on those they love?” demanded Linda. “And we are all so happy here! It seems cruel of Hubert to take it into his head to go to Queensland—all among blacks, and fever, and sunstroke, and everything.” Here she got to the end of her list of probable disasters, and though sensible that her climax was not effective, was fain to conclude, “Don’t you think it’s too bad, mother?”
“We shall feel dear Hubert’s absence deeply, bitterly, I grant,” said the fond mother; “but he is animated by the very natural desire of all high-spirited young men to improve the fortunes of the family, and to distinguish himself in a career which is open to all.”
“But the danger, mother!” said Laura, in a low voice; “you remember poor young Talbot, whom the blacks killed last month, and Mr. Haldane, who died of fever. Suppose—oh! suppose—--”
“Suppose the house fell down and killed, us all,” said Mr. Stamford, rather testily, for the purpose of hiding his own inward disquiet, which, though not expressed, was as deeply felt as that of his wife and daughters. “It’s no use talking in that way, as if a young man had never gone out into the world before. Boys go to sea and into the army every day of the year. People must make up their minds to it. It is a grand opportunity, Mr. Hope says, and may not occur again.”
“I shall hate Mr. Hope,” said Linda, “if he has induced Hubert to go into this speculation along with some one no one knows, into a country which half the people, it seems to me, never come back from. But I suppose those mercantile men don’t care.”