“Never know when they are beat, in fact,” said Dacre, with a returning smile. “Well that is a genuine English trait at any rate, so I must support the credit of my country.”
The dam was inspected and the principle of the “by-wash” explained to Dacre, who showed an aptitude and readiness to comprehend the necessary detail which favourably impressed Hubert.
The free horses pulled more on the homeward track than coming out, and elicited high commendation.
“They certainly are superb goers, and this is the poetry of motion,” Dacre exclaimed, as, sending out their eight legs as if they belonged to one horse, the well-matched pair made the light, yet strong vehicle spin over the level road with an ease and velocity which no two-wheeled trap ever approached. “I shall be unhappy till I set up a buggy and a pair of trotters—all the good resolutions to spend nothing that could be helped made at the beginning of the month notwithstanding.”
“It’s false economy to go without a buggy,” said Hubert. “Tell your father I said so. And that is easily demonstrable. It saves horse-flesh, enables you to carry feed in a dry season, and has other useful and agreeable qualities.”
The tea, for which they were just in time to dress, was an agreeable, not to say hilarious, meal. The Miss Stamfords, it would seem, had been admitting their visitor into all kinds of occult mysteries of domestic management. How they arranged when they were short of a servant, without a cook or a housemaid, or indeed, as occasionally happened, though not for any protracted period, when they had no servant at all.
Miss Dacre was astonished to find what a complete and practical knowledge these soft-appearing, graceful damsels displayed with many branches of household lore, and how many hints they were able to offer for her acceptance, all of which tended to lighten the labours of bush housekeeping, which she had already found burdensome.
From Mrs. Stamford, on opening the relief question, it was discovered that she had various humble friends and pensioners, all of whom she helped, after a fashion which encouraged them to be industrious and self-supporting; others again received advice in the management of their families, the treatment of their children, the choice of trades for their sons, and of service for their daughters. In a number of humble homes, and by all the neighbouring settlers, this gentle, low-voiced woman was regarded as the châtelaine of the manor, the good angel of the neighbourhood, the personage to whom all deferred, whose virtues all imitated at a distance, and whom to disappoint or to pain was a matter more deeply regretted than the actual shortcoming which had led to reproof.
And all this work had been done—this sensible system of true Christian benevolence and aid was in full flow and operation—without one word being said by the agents themselves which gave a hint of the energy, contrivance, and self-denial manifestly necessary for such results. All things were done silently, unobtrusively; no one spoke of them, or seemed to think them other than matters of course.