Imagine three months to have pa.s.sed. That stormy spring had changed into a placid, burning summer. The busy shearing-time was past; the noisy shearers were dispersed, heaven knows where (most of them probably suffering from a shortness of cash, complicated with delirium tremens). The gra.s.s in the plains had changed from green to dull grey; the river had changed his hoa.r.s.e roar for a sleepy murmur, as though too lazy to quarrel with his boulders in such weather. A hot dull haze was over forest and mountain. The snow had perspired till it showed long black streaks on the highest eminences. In short, summer had come with a vengeance; every one felt hot, idle, and thirsty, and "there was nothing doing."
Now that broad cool verandah of Captain Brentwood"s, with its deep recesses of shadow, was a place not to be lightly spoken of. Any man once getting footing there, and leaving it, except on compulsion, would show himself of weak mind. Any man once comfortably settled there in an easy chair, who fetched anything for himself when he could get any one else to fetch it for him, would show himself, in my opinion, a man of weak mind. One thing only was wanted to make it perfect, and that was n.i.g.g.e.rs. To the winds with "Uncle Tom"s Cabin," and "Dred" after it, in a hot wind! What can an active-minded, self-helpful lady like Mrs.
Stowe, freezing up there in Connecticut, obliged to do something to keep herself warm,--what can she, I ask, know about the requirements of a southern gentleman when the thermometer stands at 125 degrees in the shade? Pish! Does she know the exertion required for cutting up a pipe of tobacco in a hot north wind? No! Does she know the amount of perspiration and anger superinduced by knocking the head off a bottle of Ba.s.s in January? Does she know the physical prostration which is caused by breaking up two lumps of hard white sugar in a p.a.w.nee before a thunderstorm? No, she doesn"t, or she would cry out for n.i.g.g.e.rs with the best of us! When the thermometer gets over 100 degrees in the shade, all men would have slaves if they were allowed. An Anglo-Saxon conscience will not, save in rare instances, bear a higher average heat than 95 degrees.
But about this verandah. It was the model and type of all verandahs. It was made originally by the Irish family, the Donovans, before spoken of; and, like all Irish-made things, was n.o.bly conceived, beautifully carried out, and then left to take care of itself, so that when Alice came into possession, she found it a neglected mine of rare creepers run wild. Here, for the first time, I saw the exquisite crimson pa.s.sion-flower, then a great rarity. Here, too, the native pa.s.sion-flower, scarlet and orange, was tangled up with the common purple sarsaparilla and the English honeysuckle and jessamine.
In this verandah, one blazing morning, sat Mrs. Buckley and Alice making believe to work. Mrs. Buckley really was doing something. Alice sat with her hands fallen on her lap, so still and so beautiful, that she might then and there have been photographed off by some enterprising artist, and exhibited in the printshops as "Argia, G.o.ddess of Laziness."
They were not alone, however. Across the very coolest, darkest corner was swung a hammock, looking at which you might perceive two hands elevating a green paper-covered book, as though the owner were reading--the aforesaid owner, however, being entirely invisible, only proving his existence by certain bulges and angles in the canvas of the hammock.
Now, having made a nice little mystery as to who it was lying there, I will proceed to solve it. A burst of laughter came from the hidden man, so uproarious and violent, that the hammock-strings strained and shook, and the magpie, waking up from a sound sleep, cursed and swore in a manner fearful to hear.
"My dearest Jim!" said Alice, rousing herself, "What is the matter with you?"
Jim read aloud the immortal battle of the two editors, with their carpet bags, in "Pickwick," and, ere he had half done, Alice and Mrs.
Buckley had mingled their laughter with his, quite as heartily, if not so loudly.
"Hallo!" said Jim; "here"s a nuisance! There"s no more of it. Alice, have you got any more?"
"That is all, Jim. The other numbers will come by the next mail."
"How tiresome! I suppose the governor is pretty sure to be home to-night. He can"t be away much longer."
"Don"t be impatient, my dear," said Alice. "How is your leg?"
Please to remember that Jim"s leg was broken in the late wars, and, as yet, hardly well.
"Oh, it"s a good deal better. Heigho! This is very dull."
"Thank you, James!" said Mrs. Buckley. "Dear me! the heat gets greater every day. If they are on the road, I hope they won"t hurry themselves."
Our old friends were just now disposed in the following manner:--
The Major was at home. Mary Hawker was staying with him. Doctor Mulhaus and Halbert staying at Major Brentwood"s, while Captain Brentwood was away with Sam and Tom Troubridge to Sydney; and, having been absent some weeks, had been expected home now for a day or two. This was the day they came home, riding slowly up to the porch about five o"clock.
When all greetings were done, and they were sat down beside the others, Jim opened the ball by asking, "What news, father?"
"What a particularly foolish question!" said the Captain. "Why, you"ll get it all in time--none the quicker for being impatient. May be, also, when you hear some of the news, you won"t like it!"
"Oh, indeed!" said Jim.
"I have a letter for you here, from the Commander-in-Chief. You are appointed to the 3-th Regiment, at present quartered in India."
Alice looked at him quickly as she heard this, and, as a natural consequence, Sam looked too. They had expected that he would have hurra"d aloud, or thrown up his hat, or danced about, when he heard of it. But no; he only sat bolt upright in his hammock, though his face flushed scarlet, and his eyes glistened strangely.
His father looked at him an instant, and then continued,--
"Six months" leave of absence procured at the same time, which will give you about three months more at home. So you see you now possess the inestimable privilege of wearing a red coat; and what is still better, of getting a hole made in it; for there is great trouble threatening with the Affghans and Beloochs, and the chances are that you will smell powder before you are up in your regimental duties.
Under which circ.u.mstances I shall take the liberty of requesting that you inform yourself on these points under my direction, for I don"t want you to join your regiment in the position of any other b.o.o.by. Have the goodness to lie down again and not excite yourself. You have antic.i.p.ated this some time. Surely it is not necessary for you to cry about it like a great girl."
But that night, after dark, when Sam and Alice were taking one of those agreeable nocturnal walks, which all young lovers are p.r.o.ne to, they came smoothly gliding over the lawn close up to the house, and then, unseen and unheard, they saw Captain Brentwood with his arm round Jim"s neck, and heard him say,--
"O James! James! why did you want to leave me?"
And Jim answered. "Father, I didn"t know. I didn"t know my own mind.
But I can"t call back now."
Sam and Alice slipt back again, and continued their walk. Let us hear what conversation they had been holding together before this little interruption.
"Alice, my darling, my love, you are more beautiful than ever!"
"Thanks to your absence, my dear Sam. You see how well I thrive without you."
"Then when we are----"
"Well?" said Alice. For this was eight o"clock in the evening, you know, and the moon being four days past the full, it was pitch dark.
"Well?" says she.
"When we are married," says Sam, audaciously, "I suppose you will pine away to nothing."
"Good gracious me!" she answered. "Married? Why surely we are well enough as we are."
"Most excellently well, my darling," said Sam. "I wish it could last for ever."
"Oh, indeed!" said Alice, almost inaudibly though.
"Alice, my love," said Sam, "have you thought of one thing? Have you thought that I must make a start in life for myself?"
No, she hadn"t thought of that. Didn"t see why Baroona wasn"t good enough for him.
"My dear!" he said. "Baroona is a fine property, but it is not mine. I want money for a set purpose. For a glorious purpose, my love! I will not tell you yet, not for years perhaps, what that purpose is. But I want fifty thousand pounds of my own. And fifty thousand pounds I will have."
Good gracious! What an avaricious creature. Such a quant.i.ty of money.
And so she wasn"t to hear what he was going to do with it, for ever so many years. Wouldn"t he tell her now? She would so like to know. Would nothing induce him?
Yes, there was something. Nay, what harm! Only an honest lover"s kiss, among the ripening grapes. In the dark, you say. My dear madam, you would not have them kiss one another in broad day, with the cook watching them out of the kitchen window?
"Alice," he said, "I have had one object before me from my boyhood, and since you told me that I was to be your husband, that object has grown from a vague intention to a fixed purpose. Alice, I want to buy back the acres of my forefathers; I wish, I intend, that another Buckley shall be the master of Clere, and that you shall be his wife."
"Sam, my love!" she said, turning on him suddenly. "What a magnificent idea. Is it possible?"
"Easy," said Sam. "My father could do it, but will not. He and my mother have severed every tie with the old country, and it would be at their time of life only painful to go back to the old scenes and interests. But with me it is different. Think of you and I taking the place we are ent.i.tled to by birth and education, in the splendid society of that n.o.ble island. Don"t let me hear all that balderdash about the founding of new empires. Empires take too long in growing for me. What honours, what society, has this little colony to give, compared to those open to a fourth-rate gentleman in England? I want to be a real Englishman, not half a one. I want to throw in my lot heart and hand with the greatest nation in the world. I don"t want to be young Sam Buckley of Baroona. I want to be the Buckley of Clere. Is not that a n.o.ble ambition?"
"My whole soul goes with you, Sam," said Alice. "My whole heart and soul. Let us consult, and see how this is to be done."
"This is the way the thing stands," said Sam. "The house and park at Clere, were sold by my father for 12,000L. to a brewer. Since then, this brewer, a most excellent fellow by all accounts, has bought back, acre by acre, nearly half the old original property as it existed in my great grandfather"s time, so that now Clere must be worth fifty thousand pounds at least. This man"s children are all dead; and as far as Captain Brentwood has been able to find out for me, no one knows exactly how the property is going. The present owner is the same age as my father; and at his death, should an advantageous offer be made, there would be a good chance of getting the heirs to sell the property.
We should have to pay very highly for it, but consider what a position we should buy with it. The county would receive us with open arms. That is all I know at present."