From Squire to Squatter Part 43

"G.o.d bless all here!" he cried heartily.

"What," exclaimed the Squire, jumping up and holding out his hand, "my dear old friend Venturesome Vesey!"

"Yes, Yankee Charlie, and right glad I am to see you."

"My wife and children, Vesey. Though you and I have often met in town since my marriage, you've never seen them before. My brother, whom you know."

Vesey was not long in making himself one of the family circle, and he gave his promise to stay at Burley Old Farm for a week at least.

Rupert and Elsie took to him at once. How could they help it? a sailor and gentleman, and a man of the world to boot. Besides, coming directly from Archie.

"I just popped into the house the very morning after he had written the letter I now hand to you," said Captain Vesey. "He had an idea it would be safer for me to bring it. Well, here it is; and I'm going straight away out to the garden to smoke a pipe under the moon while you read it.

Friend as I am of Archie's, you must have the letter all to yourselves;" and away went Vesey.

"Send for old Kate and Branson," cried the Squire, and they accordingly marched in all expectancy.

Then the father unfolded the letter with as much reverence almost as if it had been _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_.

Every eye was fixed upon him as he slowly read it. Even Bounder, the great Newfoundland, knew something unusual was up, and sat by Elsie all the time.

Archie's Letter Home.

"My dearest Mother,--It is to you I write first, because I know that a proposal I have to make will 'take you aback,' as my friend Winslow would say. I may as well tell you what it is at once, because, if I don't, your beloved impatience will cause you to skip all the other parts of the letter till you come to it. Now then, my own old mummy, wipe your spectacles all ready, catch hold of the arm of your chair firmly, and tell Elsie to 'stand by'--another expression of Winslow's--the smelling-salts bottle. Are you all ready? Heave oh!

then. I'm going to ask you to let Rupert and Elsie come out to me here.

"Have you fainted, mummy? Not a bit of it; you're my own brave mother! And don't you see that this will be only the beginning of the end? And a bright, happy end, mother, I'm looking forward to its being. It will be the reunion of us all once more; and if we do not live quite under one roof, as in the dear old days at Burley Old Farm, we will live in happy juxtaposition.

"'What!' you cry, 'deprive me of my children?' It is for your children's good, mummy. Take Rupert first. He is not strong now, but he is young. If he comes at once to this glorious land of ours, on which I am quite enthusiastic, he will get as hardy as a New Hollander in six months' time. Wouldn't you like to see him with roses on his face, mother, and a brow as brown as a postage stamp? Send him out.

Would you like him to have a frame of iron, with muscles as tough as a mainstay? Send him out. Would you like him to be as full of health as an egg is full of meat? and so happy that he would have to get up at nights to sing? Then send him here.

"Take poor me next. You've no notion how homesick I am; I'm dying to see some of you. I am making money fast, and I love my dear, free, jolly life; but for all that, there are times that I would give up everything I possess--health, and hopes of wealth--for sake of one glance at your dear faces, and one run round Burley Old Farm with father."

This part of Archie's letter told home. There were tears in Mrs Broadbent's motherly eyes; and old Kate was heard to murmur, "Dear, bonnie laddie!" and put her ap.r.o.n to her face.

"Then," the letter continued, "there is Elsie. It would do her good to come too, because--bless the la.s.sie!--she takes her happiness at second-hand; and knowing that she was a comfort to us boys, and made everything cheery and nice, would cause her to be as jolly as the summer's day is long or a gum tree high. Then, mother, we three should work together with only one intent--that of getting you and father both out, and old Kate and Branson too.

"As for you, dad, I know you will do what is right; and see how good it would be for us all to let Roup and Elsie come. Then you must remember that when we got things a bit straighter, we would expect you and mother to follow. You, dear dad, would have full scope here for your inventive genius, and improvements that are thrown away in England could be turned to profit out here.

"We would not go like a bull at a gate at anything, father; but what we do want here is machinery, easily worked, for cutting up and dealing with wood; for cutting up ground, and for destroying tree stumps; and last, but not least, we want wells, and a complete system of irrigation for some lands, that shall make us independent to a great extent of the spa.r.s.ely-failing rains of some seasons. Of course you could tell us something about sheep disease and cattle plague, and I'm not sure you couldn't help us to turn the wild horses to account, with which some parts of the interior swarm."

Squire Broadbent paused here to exclaim, as he slapped his thigh with his open palm:

"By Saint Andrews, brother, Archie is a chip of the old block! He's a true Broadbent, I can tell you. He appreciates the brains of his father too. Heads are what are wanted out there; genius to set the mill a-going. As for this country--pah! it's played out. Yes, my children, you shall go, and your father will follow."

"My dear Elsie and Rupert," the letter went on, "how I should love to have you both out here. I have not asked you before, because I wanted to have everything in a thriving condition first; but now that everything is so, it wants but you two to help me on, and in a year or two--Hurrah! for dad and the mum!

"Yes, Elsie, your house is all prepared. I said nothing about this before. I've been, like the duck-bill, working silently out of sight--out of your sight I mean. But there it is, the finest house in all the district, a perfect mansion; walls as thick as Burley Old Tower--that's for coolness in summer. Lined inside with cedar--that's for cosiness in winter. Big hall in it, and all the rooms just _facsimile_ of our own house at home, or as near to them as the climate will admit.

"But mind you, Elsie, I'm not going to have you banished to the Bush wilds altogether. No, la.s.sie, no; we will have a mansion--a real mansion--in Sydney or Brisbane as well, and the house at Burley New Farm will be our country residence.

"I know I'll have your answer by another mail, and it will put new life into us all to know you are coming. Then I will start right away to furnish our house. Our walls shall be polished, pictures shall be hung, and mirrors everywhere; the floors shall glitter like beetles'

wings, and couches and skins be all about. I'm rather lame at house description, but you, Elsie, shall finish the furnis.h.i.+ng, and put in the nicknacks yourself.

"I'm writing here in the stillness of night, with our doggie's head upon my knee. All have gone to bed--black and white--in the house and round the Station. But I've just come in from a long walk in the moonlight. I went out to be alone and think about you; and what a glorious night, Rupert! We have no such nights in England. Though it is winter, it is warm and balmy. It is a delight to walk at night either in summer or winter. Oh, I do wish I could describe to you my garden as it is in spring and early summer! That is, you know, _our_ garden that is going to be. I had the garden laid out and planted long before the house was put up, and now my chief delight is to keep it up. You know, as I told you before, I went to Melbourne with the Winslows. Well, we went round everywhere, and saw everything; we sailed on the lovely river, and I was struck with the wonderful beauty of the gardens, and determined ours should be something like it. And when the orange blossom is out, and the fragrant verbenas, and a thousand other half-wild flowers, with ferns, ferns, ferns everywhere, and a fountain playing in the shadiest nook--this was an idea of Harry's--you would think you were in fairyland or dreamland, or 'through the looking-gla.s.s,' or somewhere; anyhow, you would be entranced.

"But to-night, when I walked there, the house--our house you know-- looked desolate and dreary, and my heart gave a big superst.i.tious thud when I heard what I thought was a footstep on the verandah, but it was only a frog as big as your hat.

"That verandah cost me and Harry many a ramble into the scrub and forest, but now it is something worth seeing, with its wealth of climbing flowering plants, its hanging ferns, and its cl.u.s.tering marvellous orchids.

"Yes, the house looks lonely; looks haunted almost; only, of course, ghosts never come near a new house. But, dear Elsie, how lovely it will look when we are living in it! when light streams out from the open cas.e.m.e.nt windows! when warmth and music are there! Oh, come soon, come _soon_! You see I'm still impulsive.

"You, Elsie, love pets. I daresay Bounder will come with you. Poor Scallowa! I was sorry to hear of his sad death. But we can have all kinds of pets here. We have many. To begin with, there is little Diana, she is queen of the station, and likely to be; she is everybody's favourite. Then there are the collies, and the kangaroo.

He is quite a darling fellow, and goes everywhere with me.

"Our laughing jacka.s.s is improving every day. He looks excessively wise when you talk to him, and if touched up with the end of a brush of turkey's feathers, which we keep for the purpose, he goes off into such fits of mad hilarious, mocking, ringing laughter that somebody has got to pick him up, cage and all, and make all haste out of the house with him.

"We have also a pet bear; that is Harry's. But don't jump. It is no bigger than a cat, and far tamer. It is a most wonderful little rascal to climb ever you saw. Koala we call him, which is his native name, and he is never tired of exploring the roof and rafters; but when he wants to go to sleep, he will tie himself round Sarah's waist, with his back downwards, and go off as sound as a top.

"We have lots of cats and a c.o.c.katoo, who is an exceedingly mischievous one, and who spends most of his life in the garden. He can talk, and dance, and sing as well. And he is a caution to snakes, I can tell you. I don't want to frighten you though. We never see the 'tiger' snake, or hardly ever, and I think the rest are harmless.

I know the swagsmen, and the sundowners too, often kill the carpet snake, and roast and eat it when they have no other sort of fresh meat. I have tasted it, and I can tell you, Rupert, it is better than roasted rabbit.

"I'm going to have a flying squirrel. The first time I saw these creatures was at night among the trees, and they startled me--great shadowy things sailing like black kites from bough to bough.

"Kangaroos are cautions. We spend many and many a good day hunting them. If we did not kill them they would eat us up, or eat the sheep's fodder up, and that would be all the same.

"Gentleman Craig has strange views about most things; he believes in Darwin, and a deal that isn't Darwin; but he says kangaroos first got or acquired their monster hindlegs, and their st.u.r.dy tails, from sitting up looking over the high gra.s.s, and cropping the leaves of bushes. He says that Australia is two millions of years old at the very least.

"I must say I like Craig very much. He is so n.o.ble and handsome.

What a splendid soldier he would have made! But with all his grandeur of looks--I cannot call it anything else--there is an air of pensiveness and melancholy about him that is never absent. Even when he smiles it is a sad smile. Ah! Rupert, his story is a very strange one; but he is young yet, only twenty-six, and he is now doing well.

He lives by himself, with just one shepherd under him, on the very confines of civilisation. I often fear the blacks will bail up his hut some day, and mumkill him, and we should all be sorry. Craig is saving money, and I believe will be a squatter himself one of these days. Etheldene is very fond of him. Sometimes I am downright jealous and nasty about it, because I would like you, Rupert, to have Etheldene for a wife. And she knows all about the black fellows, and can speak their language. Well, you see, Rupert, you could go and preach to and convert them; for they are not half so bad as they are painted. The white men often use them most cruelly, and think no more of shooting them than I should of killing an old man kangaroo.

"When I began this letter, dearest Elsie and old Roup, I meant to tell you such a lot I find I shall have no chance of doing--all about the grand trees, the wild and beautiful scenery, the birds and beasts and insects, but I should have to write for a week to do it. So pray forgive my rambling letter, and come and see it all for yourself.

"Come you must, else--let me see now what I shall threaten. Oh, I have it; I won't ever return! But if you do come, then in a few years we'll all go back together, and bring out dad and the dear mummy.

"I can't see to write any more. No, the lights are just as bright as when I commenced; but when I think of dad and the mum, my eyes _will_ get filled with moisture. So there!

"G.o.d bless you all, _all_, from the mum and dad all the way down to Kate, Branson, and Bounder.

"Archie Broadbent, C.O.B.

"P.S.--Do you know what C.O.B. means? It means Chip of the Old Block.

Hurrah!"

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.