[288]CHAPTER XIIIMrs. Banneret, recalling her Flemington experiences on Cup Day, had arranged for a symposium on a novel and comprehensive scale—to take place after the great event of the day. Notwithstanding the widely differing conditions of the respective race-courses, she determined, with the co-operation of her husband and sons, to have something like a representative Australian function, worthy of her country’s hospitable customs and of this truly memorable occasion.Having persuaded several of their most intimate friends to have their carriages standing fairly close to each other, a sort of ‘corral’ was arranged, within which a clear space was left free.This gave room for tressels, upon which were placed temporary tables, rather long and narrow, but capable of holding such meats, wines, and other refreshments as are usually dispensed at races. Of course some diplomatic management was necessary to carry through an innovation foreign to the traditionary, time-honoured habitudes of English race-goers. With the help of a few extra police (the Inspector had been in Australia) and a[289]small army of waiters, supplied by the caterer, a reasonable compromise was arrived at. A calculation was made, by which it could be demonstrated that if even a third more than the number of expected guests arrived, they could be supplied with seats and a liberal supply of the delicacies of the season, together with a few glasses of ‘Dry Monopole,’ or, having regard to the lower temperature of Britain, with a ‘touch of the real Mackay.’It was well that the calculation did not fail on the elastic side; for when it leaked out that Arnold Banneret, sometime of Carjagong, New South Wales, and more recently of Pilot Mount, West Australia, was entertaining his friends, had won largely, indeed, on the victory of Moifaa, it was wonderful what a number of colonists turned up. Among them were Lord Newstead and his lovely wife, the latter in her priceless Russian sables, and otherwise appropriately adorned. She was so glad to meet her husband’s kind, good friends, whose chance meeting with Percy and poor dear Southwater had been so fortunate for both. She hoped that Mr. and Mrs. Banneret and the girls would pay her a visit at Newstead. As for Mr. Reginald and Mr. Eric, if they could spare the time, they would know—young men being so scarce just now—how welcome they would be at her country house, or, indeed, any other. She believed she would really take a run over to that delightful Golden West some day—where, apparently, the precious metal was lying about in heaps, waiting to be picked up.‘Not quite so easy a game as that,’ said his[290]Lordship—‘eh, Mr. Banneret? Little accidents like fever, “robbery under arms,” hunger and thirst, intervene sometimesbeforethe discovery of Tom Tiddler’s Ground, or Pilot Mount. We both had a look-in from the fever fiend—a “close call,” too, as our Yankee friends say—and but for that tender nursing—why, bless my soul! you don’t say?—it can’t be! Well, of all the people in the world who’d have ever thought of seeingyouhere!’ and upon this excited exclamation, Percy, Lord Newstead, rushed forward, and accosting a pair of rather distinguished-looking persons, seized the lady by the hand, and shook it effusively, somewhat to the surprise of her companion, who had evidently never seen his Lordship before. Lady Newstead, too, looked slightly curious until her husband, almost dragging the strange lady with him, said, ‘My dear, allow me to introduce to you Mrs. Lilburne, who saved my life in West Australia, and to whom you owe your present possession of my unworthy self. There wasone nighton which I never thought to see England again, I assure you.’‘My dear Percy, you needn’t be quite so demonstrative. Mrs. Lilburne looks almost alarmed. I quite agree with you in believing that we should never have met here but for her great care and kindness. Really, Mrs. Lilburne, I think I should have recognised you even without Percy’s assistance—he has so often described you to me. But I see Mrs. Banneret is laying claim to a share of your attention; so I think we had better do honour now to the lunch, to which we were all so kindly invited.[291]Mr. Lilburne is wondering wherehecomes in. I see we must make common cause. I am anxious to hear some ofyouradventures, which I am told are too thrilling.’‘I should be charmed, Lady Newstead—they were rather unusual; but my wife and I have entered into a solemn compact that I am not to divulge the secrets of the prison-house. She has the copyright—if I may use the term—and to her alone belongs the right to disclose that strange passage of my life. In the meantime, we are both quite well, and more than happy. Permit me to offer to fill your glass with our mutual friends’ excellent champagne, and to wish them continued health and unclouded happiness.’Lady Newstead accepted the invitation, and they moved over to a position nearer their hostess, who, with the aid of the head of the house and the younger branches of the family, was ably discharging her manifold duties.Just then Mr. Banneret, whose ordinarily calm manner seemed to have acquired an accession of gaiety from the influence of the scene, had been explaining to Lady Woods, who, recently arrived from Perth, had assumed her well-known character of ‘the life and soul of the party,’ how delighted he and his wife were to find so many old friends able to keep high festival with them this day.‘If I could (borrowing a joke from the “Goldfields Act and Regulations,” which I used to know by heart) obtain a Booth License to dispense wines and spirits, I should be inclined to[292]call this the “Inn of Strange Meetings”—inasmuch as the number of friends and acquaintances who have “come up” from the Under World, as Tennyson hath it, is like an army with banners. Not only from the inmost deserts, but—and here’ (his face changing suddenly as he spoke) ‘comes one from the grave itself.’With these words he hailed a tall man sauntering past, who, dressed in the height of the reigning race-course fashion, in no respect diverging from the canon of ‘good form’ in raiment or otherwise, bore yet an exceptional and striking personality.‘Tena koe, Captain, haere mai.’A Maori response immediately followed, as the person addressed, drawing himself up, bent a pair of stern blue eyes upon his interlocutor, while Arnold Banneret, whose expression was compounded in almost equal parts of welcome and wonder, fear and amazement, gazed anxiously upon the stranger’s countenance. The new-comer was tall, considerably indeed above the height of men ordinarily thus described, though his broad chest and athletic frame caused his unusual height to be less apparent. His bronzed cheek was traversed by a scar, ‘a token true of Bosworth Field,’ or other engagement, where shrewd blows had been exchanged.‘Glad to see you again,’ said the host. ‘Waiter, bring Captain—Captain——’‘Bucklaw,’ interposed the stranger guest—‘been back to the old place.’‘Of course, of course, quite natural!’ continued[293]his entertainer; ‘bring Captain Bucklaw champagne.’The glasses were not small, having been specially ordered, and as the gallant Captain drained his, he clinked glasses with his host, and, with a glance which combined an air of reckless daring with a savour of almost schoolboy mischief, he said: ‘It’s not necessary to say, Judge, that I’m here incog.—Captain Bucklaw, of the steamerHaitchi Maru, with British-owned cargo, and passenger steamer now at anchor below Gravesend, cleared from San Francisco, is not to be mistaken for the captain of theLeonorabeneath the blue wave of Chabrat Harbour. I brought over a cargo of rice, and take back one of flour with, of course, sundries, not particularly named in the manifest. She’s faster than most “tramps,” and carries five guns—two of them No. 7 quick-firers.’‘And so you came to England to see a steeplechase?’‘That is so—or rather, being in England again, I thought I would have a look at the great race that everybody was talking about. Heard, too, that there was a New Zealand horse in it. You know that we Southerners are death on horse-racing. That time you and I met at Opononi, Captain John Webster’s place on the Hokianga (I bought a cargo of Kauri timber from him), I went to the race meeting at Auckland, where we were filling up with frozen lamb. I was struck then with the make and shape of horses bred at Mount Eden—saw Carbine, too. What a horse[294]that was! Now in England, I hear. So I backed Moifaa, like the other flax and manuka men, and made money enough almost to buy a new ship.’‘But, Captain, how is it that we see you here, or indeed anywhere else, inthe flesh? We heard that——’‘Yes, I know—been dead nearly three years. Knocked on the head and thrown overboard by a rascally cook’s mate. Dead, of course. Blue shark’s meat, and so on.’‘That part is true, then?’‘Yes, Iwasstunned and thrown overboard by that scoundrel and the boatswain together. But I was not drowned—far from it. The water brought me to, and I struck out for an island that I knew in that latitude; and, fortunately, before I got near enough to the reef for the sharks to sample me, I was picked up by a canoe, with natives, crossing from one island to another.‘They took me to their village, where I lived for six months. Reported dead, of course. So I concluded to stay dead. It’s not a bad thing, now and then. I was taken off by a whaler, and landed at Valparaiso to begin life afresh as Captain Bucklaw, and got a new ship when this Russo-Jap War broke out; and now stand a chance of dying an Admiral of the Japanese Fleet. But say—isn’t that my passenger of theLeonorafrom Molokai to Ponapé and ports? Don Carlos Alvarez? Suppose we fire a gun across his bows, and bring him to? Who’s the handsome woman he’s talking to?’‘His wife—the celebrated Nurse Lilburne, of[295]Pilot Mount, Kalgoorlie, West Australia, who saved more lives in the typhoid fever epidemic than all the doctors on the field.’‘Is that so? Then I’m proud of having been the means of bringing her best patient back to her. Hope he’ll stayput. The buccaneer has more than one good deed to his account; maybe the recording angel won’t forget to post that one up!’‘Oh, Captain, is that you? We heard you were dead—how grieved Alister and I were after parting with you.’‘I was reported missing for six months, señora!’ said he, with a low bow, and the fascinating smile, half melancholy, half remorseful, which had proved so irresistible in his path through life. ‘It is nearly the same thing—sometimes worse indeed—meaning slavery, tortures, indignities; but occasionally, though rarely, one escapes, through the mediation of his Patron Saint, let us say, and has once more the honour to salute his friends—and passengers!’By this time Mrs. Banneret had moved closer to the romantic personage, to whom she was made known in due form; and the younger members of the family having come up, lured by the report that the tall stranger was a pirate of the Spanish main—or some such dark and terrible adventurer analogous to fascinating outlawry, they were presented severally, but kept gazing as if spellbound, congratulating themselves upon having seen—even if it were for but once in their lives—a real-life accredited delightful pirate!‘Such a handsome man!’ said Hermione. ‘It’s[296]not that alone—though, of course, heisvery handsome, and he has beautiful eyes, that look right through you, and has immense strength, plain for all men to see. But there’s the calm dignity of command, a birthright never to be acquired. You feel that such a manmustbe obeyed; that no one woulddareto resist for one moment. No doubt he has shed blood—which is dreadful to think of—but he has saved life also, and done many merciful and charitable actions—if we only knew.’‘Oh, yes! scores, hundreds,’ said Vanda: ‘carried starving crowds of natives away from their islands when the crops had failed; picked up canoes at sea when they were beginning to cast lots for one to die to save the rest;and——’‘Don’t tell me any more,’ pleaded Hermione. ‘I can’t bear it.’‘And they say that if he was arrested he could be thrown into prison for offences against maritime law—whatever that may be. Hewasarrested at Honolulu, and was a prisoner upon a British man-of-war.’‘Yes!’ cried Vanda; ‘but they couldn’t prove anything against him. So they had to let him go again, and he gave a ball afterwards. So he couldn’t have done anything very wicked. He sings, and plays on the violin, and guitar too. What a draw he would be in opera!’‘Mrs. Lilburne says she willneverforget his kindness to her husband. He got him away from that dreadful island, where he would have died.[297]So would she. She had a great mind to commit suicide, and was only kept alive by the incessant work in the hospital at Pilot Mount, where she nursed father, and Lord Newstead, and lots of poor miners.’
Mrs. Banneret, recalling her Flemington experiences on Cup Day, had arranged for a symposium on a novel and comprehensive scale—to take place after the great event of the day. Notwithstanding the widely differing conditions of the respective race-courses, she determined, with the co-operation of her husband and sons, to have something like a representative Australian function, worthy of her country’s hospitable customs and of this truly memorable occasion.
Having persuaded several of their most intimate friends to have their carriages standing fairly close to each other, a sort of ‘corral’ was arranged, within which a clear space was left free.
This gave room for tressels, upon which were placed temporary tables, rather long and narrow, but capable of holding such meats, wines, and other refreshments as are usually dispensed at races. Of course some diplomatic management was necessary to carry through an innovation foreign to the traditionary, time-honoured habitudes of English race-goers. With the help of a few extra police (the Inspector had been in Australia) and a[289]small army of waiters, supplied by the caterer, a reasonable compromise was arrived at. A calculation was made, by which it could be demonstrated that if even a third more than the number of expected guests arrived, they could be supplied with seats and a liberal supply of the delicacies of the season, together with a few glasses of ‘Dry Monopole,’ or, having regard to the lower temperature of Britain, with a ‘touch of the real Mackay.’
It was well that the calculation did not fail on the elastic side; for when it leaked out that Arnold Banneret, sometime of Carjagong, New South Wales, and more recently of Pilot Mount, West Australia, was entertaining his friends, had won largely, indeed, on the victory of Moifaa, it was wonderful what a number of colonists turned up. Among them were Lord Newstead and his lovely wife, the latter in her priceless Russian sables, and otherwise appropriately adorned. She was so glad to meet her husband’s kind, good friends, whose chance meeting with Percy and poor dear Southwater had been so fortunate for both. She hoped that Mr. and Mrs. Banneret and the girls would pay her a visit at Newstead. As for Mr. Reginald and Mr. Eric, if they could spare the time, they would know—young men being so scarce just now—how welcome they would be at her country house, or, indeed, any other. She believed she would really take a run over to that delightful Golden West some day—where, apparently, the precious metal was lying about in heaps, waiting to be picked up.
‘Not quite so easy a game as that,’ said his[290]Lordship—‘eh, Mr. Banneret? Little accidents like fever, “robbery under arms,” hunger and thirst, intervene sometimesbeforethe discovery of Tom Tiddler’s Ground, or Pilot Mount. We both had a look-in from the fever fiend—a “close call,” too, as our Yankee friends say—and but for that tender nursing—why, bless my soul! you don’t say?—it can’t be! Well, of all the people in the world who’d have ever thought of seeingyouhere!’ and upon this excited exclamation, Percy, Lord Newstead, rushed forward, and accosting a pair of rather distinguished-looking persons, seized the lady by the hand, and shook it effusively, somewhat to the surprise of her companion, who had evidently never seen his Lordship before. Lady Newstead, too, looked slightly curious until her husband, almost dragging the strange lady with him, said, ‘My dear, allow me to introduce to you Mrs. Lilburne, who saved my life in West Australia, and to whom you owe your present possession of my unworthy self. There wasone nighton which I never thought to see England again, I assure you.’
‘My dear Percy, you needn’t be quite so demonstrative. Mrs. Lilburne looks almost alarmed. I quite agree with you in believing that we should never have met here but for her great care and kindness. Really, Mrs. Lilburne, I think I should have recognised you even without Percy’s assistance—he has so often described you to me. But I see Mrs. Banneret is laying claim to a share of your attention; so I think we had better do honour now to the lunch, to which we were all so kindly invited.[291]Mr. Lilburne is wondering wherehecomes in. I see we must make common cause. I am anxious to hear some ofyouradventures, which I am told are too thrilling.’
‘I should be charmed, Lady Newstead—they were rather unusual; but my wife and I have entered into a solemn compact that I am not to divulge the secrets of the prison-house. She has the copyright—if I may use the term—and to her alone belongs the right to disclose that strange passage of my life. In the meantime, we are both quite well, and more than happy. Permit me to offer to fill your glass with our mutual friends’ excellent champagne, and to wish them continued health and unclouded happiness.’
Lady Newstead accepted the invitation, and they moved over to a position nearer their hostess, who, with the aid of the head of the house and the younger branches of the family, was ably discharging her manifold duties.
Just then Mr. Banneret, whose ordinarily calm manner seemed to have acquired an accession of gaiety from the influence of the scene, had been explaining to Lady Woods, who, recently arrived from Perth, had assumed her well-known character of ‘the life and soul of the party,’ how delighted he and his wife were to find so many old friends able to keep high festival with them this day.
‘If I could (borrowing a joke from the “Goldfields Act and Regulations,” which I used to know by heart) obtain a Booth License to dispense wines and spirits, I should be inclined to[292]call this the “Inn of Strange Meetings”—inasmuch as the number of friends and acquaintances who have “come up” from the Under World, as Tennyson hath it, is like an army with banners. Not only from the inmost deserts, but—and here’ (his face changing suddenly as he spoke) ‘comes one from the grave itself.’
With these words he hailed a tall man sauntering past, who, dressed in the height of the reigning race-course fashion, in no respect diverging from the canon of ‘good form’ in raiment or otherwise, bore yet an exceptional and striking personality.
‘Tena koe, Captain, haere mai.’
A Maori response immediately followed, as the person addressed, drawing himself up, bent a pair of stern blue eyes upon his interlocutor, while Arnold Banneret, whose expression was compounded in almost equal parts of welcome and wonder, fear and amazement, gazed anxiously upon the stranger’s countenance. The new-comer was tall, considerably indeed above the height of men ordinarily thus described, though his broad chest and athletic frame caused his unusual height to be less apparent. His bronzed cheek was traversed by a scar, ‘a token true of Bosworth Field,’ or other engagement, where shrewd blows had been exchanged.
‘Glad to see you again,’ said the host. ‘Waiter, bring Captain—Captain——’
‘Bucklaw,’ interposed the stranger guest—‘been back to the old place.’
‘Of course, of course, quite natural!’ continued[293]his entertainer; ‘bring Captain Bucklaw champagne.’
The glasses were not small, having been specially ordered, and as the gallant Captain drained his, he clinked glasses with his host, and, with a glance which combined an air of reckless daring with a savour of almost schoolboy mischief, he said: ‘It’s not necessary to say, Judge, that I’m here incog.—Captain Bucklaw, of the steamerHaitchi Maru, with British-owned cargo, and passenger steamer now at anchor below Gravesend, cleared from San Francisco, is not to be mistaken for the captain of theLeonorabeneath the blue wave of Chabrat Harbour. I brought over a cargo of rice, and take back one of flour with, of course, sundries, not particularly named in the manifest. She’s faster than most “tramps,” and carries five guns—two of them No. 7 quick-firers.’
‘And so you came to England to see a steeplechase?’
‘That is so—or rather, being in England again, I thought I would have a look at the great race that everybody was talking about. Heard, too, that there was a New Zealand horse in it. You know that we Southerners are death on horse-racing. That time you and I met at Opononi, Captain John Webster’s place on the Hokianga (I bought a cargo of Kauri timber from him), I went to the race meeting at Auckland, where we were filling up with frozen lamb. I was struck then with the make and shape of horses bred at Mount Eden—saw Carbine, too. What a horse[294]that was! Now in England, I hear. So I backed Moifaa, like the other flax and manuka men, and made money enough almost to buy a new ship.’
‘But, Captain, how is it that we see you here, or indeed anywhere else, inthe flesh? We heard that——’
‘Yes, I know—been dead nearly three years. Knocked on the head and thrown overboard by a rascally cook’s mate. Dead, of course. Blue shark’s meat, and so on.’
‘That part is true, then?’
‘Yes, Iwasstunned and thrown overboard by that scoundrel and the boatswain together. But I was not drowned—far from it. The water brought me to, and I struck out for an island that I knew in that latitude; and, fortunately, before I got near enough to the reef for the sharks to sample me, I was picked up by a canoe, with natives, crossing from one island to another.
‘They took me to their village, where I lived for six months. Reported dead, of course. So I concluded to stay dead. It’s not a bad thing, now and then. I was taken off by a whaler, and landed at Valparaiso to begin life afresh as Captain Bucklaw, and got a new ship when this Russo-Jap War broke out; and now stand a chance of dying an Admiral of the Japanese Fleet. But say—isn’t that my passenger of theLeonorafrom Molokai to Ponapé and ports? Don Carlos Alvarez? Suppose we fire a gun across his bows, and bring him to? Who’s the handsome woman he’s talking to?’
‘His wife—the celebrated Nurse Lilburne, of[295]Pilot Mount, Kalgoorlie, West Australia, who saved more lives in the typhoid fever epidemic than all the doctors on the field.’
‘Is that so? Then I’m proud of having been the means of bringing her best patient back to her. Hope he’ll stayput. The buccaneer has more than one good deed to his account; maybe the recording angel won’t forget to post that one up!’
‘Oh, Captain, is that you? We heard you were dead—how grieved Alister and I were after parting with you.’
‘I was reported missing for six months, señora!’ said he, with a low bow, and the fascinating smile, half melancholy, half remorseful, which had proved so irresistible in his path through life. ‘It is nearly the same thing—sometimes worse indeed—meaning slavery, tortures, indignities; but occasionally, though rarely, one escapes, through the mediation of his Patron Saint, let us say, and has once more the honour to salute his friends—and passengers!’
By this time Mrs. Banneret had moved closer to the romantic personage, to whom she was made known in due form; and the younger members of the family having come up, lured by the report that the tall stranger was a pirate of the Spanish main—or some such dark and terrible adventurer analogous to fascinating outlawry, they were presented severally, but kept gazing as if spellbound, congratulating themselves upon having seen—even if it were for but once in their lives—a real-life accredited delightful pirate!
‘Such a handsome man!’ said Hermione. ‘It’s[296]not that alone—though, of course, heisvery handsome, and he has beautiful eyes, that look right through you, and has immense strength, plain for all men to see. But there’s the calm dignity of command, a birthright never to be acquired. You feel that such a manmustbe obeyed; that no one woulddareto resist for one moment. No doubt he has shed blood—which is dreadful to think of—but he has saved life also, and done many merciful and charitable actions—if we only knew.’
‘Oh, yes! scores, hundreds,’ said Vanda: ‘carried starving crowds of natives away from their islands when the crops had failed; picked up canoes at sea when they were beginning to cast lots for one to die to save the rest;and——’
‘Don’t tell me any more,’ pleaded Hermione. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘And they say that if he was arrested he could be thrown into prison for offences against maritime law—whatever that may be. Hewasarrested at Honolulu, and was a prisoner upon a British man-of-war.’
‘Yes!’ cried Vanda; ‘but they couldn’t prove anything against him. So they had to let him go again, and he gave a ball afterwards. So he couldn’t have done anything very wicked. He sings, and plays on the violin, and guitar too. What a draw he would be in opera!’
‘Mrs. Lilburne says she willneverforget his kindness to her husband. He got him away from that dreadful island, where he would have died.[297]So would she. She had a great mind to commit suicide, and was only kept alive by the incessant work in the hospital at Pilot Mount, where she nursed father, and Lord Newstead, and lots of poor miners.’
[298]CHAPTER XIV‘Really,’ said Vanda, ‘when we want to see our Australian friends, the proper thing is to come to England. We have certainly met more in a month here than we ever did in a year in the colonies.’‘And we never should have fallen across Captain Hay——I beg his pardon, Captain Bucklaw in Australia,’ assented Hermione. ‘I wonder what will be his end. Something romantic and far from peaceful, I feel certain. Oh, here he comes to say good-bye! Why can’t he stay another day, I wonder?’‘Reasons of State! The Captain never stays long in one place, I’ve remarked,’ said Mr. Lilburne, who, with his wife, now joined them. ‘He had a wire from his agent that the cargo was complete, and theHaitchi Maruonly waiting for her commander.’Mr. and Mrs. Banneret now came forward, while the Lilburnes shook hands warmly with the man who had been their friend in need, whatever might have been his career under other circumstances.[299]‘Weshall never forget you,’ said Mrs. Lilburne; ‘you saved two lives when you rescued Alister from that inferno.’‘The Captain knows he may count on us whenever he likes to call,’ said her husband. ‘We hope to be able to repay him in kind.’‘It was time for us to go, my lads;It was time for us to go,’said he, chaunting the refrain of an old sailor-song, in deep melodious tones. ‘I have never yet been caught napping, but, believe me, this meeting of true friends will be among the most precious memories of a reckless life, and if any of the present company should find themselves in danger on sea, or land, within a hundred miles of this skipper, he’ll effect a diversion if it’s in the power of mortal man. But, after all, it’s a ten-to-one chance we never meet again. Think of me as one who might have been a better man with better luck. Adios, señora. Adios, Don Carlos Alvarez. Adios, señoritas.’ Here he shook hands once more with the men, and bowing low to the girls and Mrs. Banneret, strode away to a swift hansom which awaited him, and disappeared from their eyes.There was a peculiar feeling, somewhat allied to regret, yet perhaps even more to relief, when their picturesquely lawless friend took his departure. This sentiment was shared in lesser degree by the older, more experienced individuals of the party. But the girls were frankly grieved at the loss of so romantic an acquaintance—the tears, indeed, coming into Vanda’s eyes as she realised[300]that she could hardly hope to know ‘a real pirate’ again.‘Do you think he reallywasengaged in the Black Flag business—death’s head and crossbones, and so on?’ queried Eric.‘I don’t think that was ever proved,’ answered Lilburne; ‘more likely a trifle of privateering, or “blackbirding,” as labour-recruiting was called in the early days of the Queensland sugar-planting industry. But therewasa warrant out for him, and, indeed, for Hilary Telfer—that tall, fair man standing near Mrs. Banneret with his lovely wife; he was supercargo on board the famousLeonora.’‘What a beautiful creature she is!’ said Hermione; ‘what a figure, what eyes, and such a face, lit up by a charming smile! She is something like a Spanish girl we saw at Santa Barbara, and yet not quite the same type—far more beautiful, with grace personified. I can’t quite place her.’‘She is a descendant of Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutineers of theBounty, who disappeared somewhere about the year 1788, and formed that very interesting community at Pitcairn Island. They were not discovered until September 1808, when Captain Folger, of the American shipTopaz, seeing smoke rising from an island, from which a canoe was approaching, was hailed by the occupants in good Saxon English. “Won’t you heave us a rope, now?” was the request from the frail bark, and, a rope being thrown out, a fine young man sprang actively on deck. “I’m Thursday October Christian,” he said modestly, “son of Fletcher[301]Christian, and the first man born on the island.” H.M.S. theBritonand theTagus—the former commanded by Sir T. Staines—were in search of an American ship which had seized some English whalers, when they suddenly came in sight of an uncharted island. It was Pitcairn, but should have been two hundred miles distant—being placed on the chart by Captain Carteret (who discovered it in 1767) three degrees out of its true longitude.’‘It seems almost incredible,’ said Mr. Banneret, ‘that a canoe carried on a man’s shoulders should be safely handled amidst such terrific surges, but I recollect seeing Australian aboriginals at Two-fold Bay carrying their bark canoeson their headsto the water, and fishing successfully when it was by no means smooth. English-speaking strangers proved themselves to be unsurpassed boatmen—to be recognised in the aftertime as such amongst the best whalemen in the world. Twenty years had elapsed since Fletcher Christian and his mutineer associates, with their Tahitian wives, had left Mataavai Bay. During the whole of that time the actors in the tragedy had disappeared from mortal ken as completely as if they had been sunk “deeper than plummet lies,” with their broken-up and abandoned vessel theBounty.’In 1808 Captain Mayhew Folger first came upon the little community of Pitcairn Island; in 1814 the Anglo-Tahitians had increased to the number of forty. Nothing was done by the British Government until 1825, when Captain Beechey, in theBlossom, on a voyage of discovery,[302]paid a visit to Pitcairn Island. A boat under sail was observed coming towards the ship. The crew consisted of old Adams and ten young men of the island. The young men were tall, robust, and healthy, with good-natured countenances, and a simplicity of manner combined with a fear of doing something that might be wrong, which prevented the possibility of giving offence. None of them had shoes or stockings. Adams, in his sixty-fifth year, was dressed in a sailor’s shirt and trousers, and wore a low-crowned hat. He still retained his sailor manners, doffing his hat whenever he was addressed by the officers.Sir Thomas Staines’s letter, written on 18th October 1814, stated that every individual on the island (forty in number) spoke excellent English. They proved to be the descendants of the deluded crew of theBounty. The venerable old man, John Adams, was the only surviving Englishman of those who last quitted Tahiti in her. The pious manner in which all those born on the island had been reared, and the correct sense of religion which had been instilled into their young minds by the old man, had given him the pre-eminence over the whole of them. And to him they looked up as the Patriarch of their tribe.. . . . . . . . .The great day, the great race was over. The Australian family had enjoyed their modest triumph in seeing the good horse from a sister colony win the blue ribbon of the great cross-country contest, coming in victorious over hedge and ditch,[303]brook and rail, with the best blood of England eight lengths behind. That was an honour which could never be taken away from them. In years to come any of them would be able to say, ‘I saw Moifaa sweep over the four miles and a half of a stiff course (as English people reckon) with as much ease as if it had been a hurdle race. And until we see an imported horse from England win a steeplechase at Flemington, we shall be entitled to hold that the horses bred south of the line possess unequalled speed, stoutness, and jumping ability.’From the far ocean-surrounded islands of the south land, where still linger the traces of the moa, and the apteryx perplexes the tourist, to the torrid levels of the West Australian fields, where the miner’s harvest is weighed and reckoned in ounces of fine gold, the love of athletic sports, which the British emigrants carried with them, has caused their representative champions to be respected from India to the Pole.After this equine battle of Waterloo it was, of course, natural for the victorious Austro-Britons to fall back upon their base in London—the Hotel Cecil, where they and the Allied Forces might arrange for future operations during the spring and summer campaigns.The Bannerets were not, as may be imagined, without acquaintances, and, indeed, friends of long standing in high places. Cadets of noble houses had visited Australia in the early ’fifties (1852 to 1856), when the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo, Eaglehawk and Maryborough, were at[304]their marvellous height of productiveness; where, also, the purchase of a few shares overnight might result in a fortune before breakfast for the investor. Besides such glimpses into Aladdin’s cave, there was the entirely new spectacle of goldfields, where the precious metal might be seen in the matrix, and the operations for its extraction by chance workers of every degree of age, nationality, or occupation witnessed. It was a fascinating and novel experience to watch the process in shallow ground, hardly less primitive than the ordinary digging of potatoes: to mark the runaway sailors, farm hands, shepherds, or stock-riders, joking the while, as they occasionally threw up a ten- or twenty-ounce ‘nugget’ of almost pure gold, worth £4 per ounce, or a lump of the gold-studded quartz, to the tourist bystander peering down the edge of the shaft, with the touching confidence that it would be punctiliously returned, after being wondered at, and perhaps weighed, by the obliged stranger. Such things sound improbable, but are, nevertheless, strictly, rigidly true, as can be avouched by any miner of the period. The neighbouring squatters, in a general way men of birth and breeding, had been pleased to welcome these agreeable strangers to their homes, where, the daughters of the land being often handsome and attractive, the stranger guest had no particular objection to prolonging his stay when his hosts and other neighbouring magnates were so anxious to secure his society.Lord Salisbury was known to have lived in a[305]tent, with a friend or two,more Australico, and personally, as ‘Mr. Cecil,’ studied the humours of a ‘rush’ near Bendigo. As he did not stay long or, presumably, make a fortune, he probably consoled himself with the reflection that he had gained the rare experience of a personal examination of a vast colonial industry at first hand, which would be valuable in forming political opinion as to the treatment of British colonies, under new and original conditions. In the light of his Lordship’s ministerial responsibilities in later life, perhaps it was well for him that he should be in a position to observe the process of formation of a British state, with municipal, mercantile, civil, and military functions, of a character befitting the Empire, evolved from the heterogeneous components of a goldfields population. How doubtful, how improbable, that order, achievement, high attainment, should ever have been so produced, contemporary journalists and visitors have left on record. For the proof,respice finem, behold the tree-shaded street, broad, straight, tram-pervaded, at Ballarat; the lake where formerly the wild duck swam amid the reedy marsh; the steamers thereon which equalise the traffic; the gardens where the weary tourist may rest, or read, upon a bench prepared by the municipalities, while he gazes around on the wide transformed landscape. Naval officers, cadets of great houses, budding field-marshals, had all been temporarily adopted at Arnold Banneret’s paternal home. The middies were now, some of them, admirals; the Honourable Mr. Sedley and Mr. Villiers were now barons[306]and earls, having ‘come into their kingdoms,’ so to speak.They did not forget the friends who had dined and mounted them, provided shooting and hunting parties, thought nothing too good for them; and invitations flowed into the Hotel Cecil for garden parties, dances, dinners—in fact, all the gaieties of the season.And what a season it was! ‘Oh to be in England, now that April’s here!’ For the nonce it was a fine, warm, evendrysummer, which enhanced the green glory of the century-old oaks, the ‘immemorial elms,’ and the various flowers of the great parks and also of the natural woodland. What joy it was to these young people to wander with their brothers along the ‘leafy lanes, where the trees met overhead, when the merry brooks ran clear and gay’! To note, lying underneath the aged oaks, the skylark rising from the field, and pealing his matin song of gladness.‘Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,And Phœbus ’gins arise,His steeds to water at those springsOn chaliced flowers that lies;And winking Mary-buds beginTo ope their golden eyes:With everything that pretty is,My lady sweet, arise!’quoted Hermione.Then the wild-flowers: what a feast of plant life! What various colour, shape, bloom—of every shade and tint, from the dingle, ‘where the rath violets grow,’ to the daffodil bank, by the[307]sun-kissed lake. ‘Isn’t that delicious?’ said Hermione; ‘who but our Shakespeare could have pictured so delightfully the lovely summer of old England, with the hedgerows and the pastures all glistening with dew! That dear lark is coming down again—a living song, floating through the blue ocean of sky—singing as he falls. Then at last dropping like a stone into the field—I saw him close to that patch of red clover.’‘Butwehave skylarks in Australia,’ said Vanda, who objected to unqualified praise of England for being England; ‘our bird doesn’t fly so high, certainly, and stops more quickly, but he sings a sweet little tuneful lay. He has not had a thousand years in which to practise.’This colloquy took place one morning before breakfast, at which unusual time, about 5A.M., these young people elected to get up, for once in a way, that they might be enabled to say they had seen an English sunrise, and heard an English skylark. They were staying at an old—ever so old English hall, where everything was in keeping with tradition and history. The century-old oaks were there; the forest was the same, mercifully spared, and lovingly tended; the aged oaks were the immediate descendants of those under which Gurth and Wamba lay and chaunted their roundelay when Bois-Guilbert, the Templar of the period, inquired the way to Rotherwood, and was directed all wrong by the eccentric Wamba.Yes! there were the oaks, huge of girth, mighty of spread and shade, and clothed to the very tips of their enormous branches with delicate leaflets, bursting[308]buds, and every variety of leafage which goes to furbish up the glorious green garb of an English spring.Now that the spring had arrived, the real English spring—written about, talked about, sung about by everybody that had ever been in England, or read about the great and glorious Motherland—they were all mad with hope and expectation, also with ardent desire to go in and possess the land of faerie. Fortunately, for once, the climate did not betray them. The weather continued fine and open. Frosts were few and far between. The grass in the meadows, thick and verdant, spread a velvet garment over all the land. Over the fields around stood ancient farm-houses, near villages with names as old as the Norman Conquest. Around were ruined abbeys and crumbling spires, besides bridges over brooks, where swam the fat carp which had tempted the monks to sink their foundations first, and to follow up with the stately piles, which sheltered so many a lordly abbot and his train of cowled brethren, lay and spiritual, with servitors, tenants, and retainers, military and otherwise.All this strengthened the desire of the Bannerets to establish themselves in a country residence, whence they might issue forth in quest of the more desirable entertainments, at the same time preserving the home feeling, and having apied à terrewhich would give them standing in the county superior to that of mere birds of passage.The girls of the family, now that the spring was distinctly on, and the summer, by natural course of nature, might be expected to follow,[309]desired no change. They felt, and indeed repeatedly affirmed, that their cup of joy was full—that they never expected to be so truly, consciously, ecstatically happy. Every night Hermione and Vanda retired, after a day filled with novel and delicious sensations, to dream of a new kind of felicity on the morrow; a forecast the reality of which rarely disappointed them. Their parents occasionally uttered a note of warning as to the too eager pursuit of pleasure, and the need of moderation even, on the score of health. But there was small reason for caution on that score: the young people had exceptionally strong constitutions—sound, unworn, and elastic, with all the marvellous recuperative power of early youth. Their cousins and friends in the country districts of Australia had been known to ride thirty or forty miles to a ball, at which to dance until daylight afterwards, with but little or no fatigue. They belonged to the same type, and were not a whit behind them in endurance, defying fatigue or lassitude where pleasure or interesting travel was concerned. So all manner of recreative experiences had been tested—hackneys for the park, rides and drives, concerts and theatres, balls and parties, receptions given by certain returned Governors, to whom they had been socially known in Australia. These proconsuls lost no time in inviting them to entertainments where they met various great ones of the land, to whom it was explained that they were really ‘nice’—distinguished even in a sense, and ever so rich—owning gold mines of unquestioned, almost fabulous richness.There was then no difficulty about invitations[310]and engagements; the trouble was to keep up with them all, and so arrange that they did not clash, and at the same time to find out the right people at whose entertainments to be ‘seen.’ They were naturally popular in this new environment, with more or less foreign elements. The girls were voted pretty (Hermione, indeed, was very handsome), well dressed, well mannered, and above all ‘nice’—that mysterious adjective which goes for so much in English society. The young men, too, were good-looking, well turned out, and so closely resembling Englishmen of their age and standing, that surprise was expressed that they should be Australians, there being no peculiarity of accent, or appearance, betokening their colonial origin. They were also athletic beyond average form—being skilled at tennis, cricket, and other fashionable games.Now the vitally important matter next on hand was the selection of a home. Mr. Banneret, after due consideration, had decided to invest in an estate. The Hotel Cecil was well managed, comfortable, even luxurious. It was, of course, expensive, even perhaps extravagant. But that was not the reason for disapproval. Money was no object, as the phrase runs.Still, Arnold Banneret and his wife disliked hotel lifeen permanence. The continual change of acquaintances, with whom a certain sort of association was almost impossible to avoid, was distasteful to them. They did not, as their experience matured, think it, in all respects, beneficial to the girls. For them and their brothers they[311]wished to re-create the home feeling. They longed for the change once more to peaceful country life—where they might live among such neighbours as made the chief rural luxury, and secure, if such might be, valuable and enduring friendships.To this end it was decided tobuyan estate. Leased houses, with perhaps suitable grounds, furniture, and belongings, were all very well in their way. But people’s ideas about furniture and other matters differed widely sometimes. And, at the delivering-up day, misunderstandings were likely to arise—had arisen within their experience. Thus it was decided to buy. They could then comfort themselves with knowing that they were safely settled for years to come—could not be turned out by the whim of the proprietor, or any one else. And if the worst came to the worst, and circumstances compelled them to return to their own country, they could, of course, re-sell; and as estates in England, valuable and well placed, did not vary much in value, they could get their money back without serious deduction.The girls at first did not take kindly to the idea. They found their present mode of existence much to their taste. But their mother had with some regret observed that a subtle change was taking place in the character of her daughters. Constant amusement, of course, they had no difficulty in procuring. It was furnished without effort on their part. But it pained her to discover that an alteration of taste was even now showing itself. They did not care so much for the more[312]rational forms of amusement; they began to crave more and more for excitement; and provided that it was of a sufficiently novel and bizarre nature, they seemed, to her watchful eye, to be growing more and more careless of surroundings, and of the status of the people with whom they were necessarily associated.In order to combat this feeling, and to render the departure from the Hotel Cecil, and its continuous round of gaieties, less depressing, Mrs. Banneret began diplomatically to descant upon the more permanently attractive features of English country life,—the ancient trees, the historical associations of the manor-house and the grounds; the neighbouring gentry, the hunting fixtures, the pleasant parties made up for shooting, coursing, fishing, and other time-honoured sports, for the performance of which desirable guests would be brought down from town or invited from neighbouring families; the archery meetings, after which it was the fashion of the county to have impromptu dances; the hounds on the lawn, the distinguished personages, the aristocratic M.F.H., the ‘coffee-house’ feature of the meets, the hunting women, the road riders, their friends, and other people’s friends, the garden parties—in short, all the hundred and one pleasant meetings, half sport, half business, which only a country life could adequately provide.‘Think,’ she said, ‘my dear girls, what a different life it would be for us all! Your father is pining for a return to regular home life, such[313]as he and I enjoyed when you were little, and which, in spite of the troubles of a Gold Commissioner’s life, we even now look back upon as our happiest days. He wants to have a decent stable, a couple of hacks, a brace or two of hunters; his phaeton pair, and a dogcart horse; a landau for me and you on great occasions; a safe hunter apiece for you girls, and perhaps another, or so, for a friend. Besides, with a moderate-sized estate—ten or twelve thousand acres—he can enjoy some shooting and amateur farming, which will give him healthy exercise—he doesn’t get enough now, and it’s bad for him. He’s getting too stout; you see that yourselves, don’t you? Then we shall be the Bannerets of Hexham Hall. I feel quite like the Lady of the Manor already.’As the good matron kept summing up the joys of this ideal life—the glorious awakening in the fresh, sweet atmosphere of the country, the song of the birds, the dewy lawns—the girls watched her face glow and her eyes sparkle with almost youthful lustre. They could bear the situation no longer.‘Mother! dear mother!’ cried Hermione, ‘don’t go on—I can’t bear it. We have been wicked, selfish girls not to have seen it before. I thought you and father had been looking out of spirits lately. I see now how it was telling on you. We’ll go, Vanda, wherever we are told. It’s a shame that we should have had to be asked. Only we must have a family council before the place—the manor, the castle, or whatever it is to[314]be—is finally decided upon. It can’t be so very dreadful after all.’‘Dreadful!’ cried Vanda; ‘it’s delicious. I’ll undertake the dairy—and we must have lots of lovely tiles, and such cream-pans, and a floor like glass, and walls that can be washed down twice a day. The next thing is to find the Castle of Otranto. Will there be ruins, ghosts, and a helmet to fall down with a crash? I must have vaults, too, and a secret passage, where the former lord of the castle was concealed when the Roundheads sacked it. And such a range of stabling, too! I must have two hunters if I am to keep up my riding.’The sons gave their unhesitating opinion in favour of the estate. Land was cheap in England at present—many of the owners being only too glad to get rid of property which paid ridiculously low in interest on capital, and was year by year involving the so-called proprietor in heavier expense. As to the value of a large historic family mansion, it was looked upon as the proverbial white elephant, which the owners would be only too pleased to get rid of, once and for ever.Then the choice—that was the difficulty. Arnold Banneret shuddered when he thought of the scores of desirable places, old and half-ruinous, ill-drained, decayed, damp, smothered in ivy, shaded by vast growths of world-old groves that it would be sacrilege to cut down, and death by slow and gradual process to leave unaltered. The new mansion ghastly with stucco—redolent of fresh paint—the mistaken ambition of the[315]manufacturer, tired of so soon after the contractor was paid, and disgracefully new like the baronetcy; these and other failures, like Banquo’s line of shadowy kings, passed before him in review, until he almost resolved to cut the whole concern and go back to Australia, where, at any rate, one could enjoy one’s life in peace. This was after a long day’s rail to examine an over-praised, over-valued, highly unsuitable investment, with too much house and too little land—both being indecently inferior in quality, besides being in a dull and undesirable county.‘It was thought,’ declared the agent, ‘that it would just suit a gentleman from Australia, being a bit wild-like, and not too trim and polished up, as it were.’ He seemed surprised at being curtly informed that a man did not come all the way from Australia to encumber himself with an indifferent house and exceptionally bad land, as the attempts at crops plainly showed; that he had been misled by the advertisement, and would be sorry to take the place as a gift.This was a bad beginning, but his wife comforted him by saying that she could see that he had been so bored by inaction that he was evidently glad of the chance of taking a journeysomewhere, if only to end in disappointment; that she was glad to see that he had so much of his old energy left; that she must go with him next time, when better counsels would prevail, and success attend them eventually.At length, after tedious delays and disappointing inspections of every kind of country house—mansion,[316]manor, and historic castellated abode—even including a moat, an altogether satisfactory purchase was effected. The place was historic, a royal princess had lived there under strict guardianship during her nonage. The place was certainly far from modern in outward appearance, but the interior had been restored tastefully, and in accordance with the latest requirements, by the owner, who, having fallen upon evil times, was only too pleased to take a moderate price in cash for a property which, with costly renovation and additions, had cost a third more than the sale price. When the probable purchaser and his wife ran down by train to have a full and leisurely inspection, they were more pleased than they cared to show at thecoup d’œil.It was the early forenoon. The day was fine—the air mild, almost breezeless; the great oaks, the venerable elms, the ancient walls which surrounded the ‘pleasaunce,’ gave the whole place the look of a monarch’s retreat for the time when he might wish to rest from the cares of State and enjoy a rare solitude, apart from the crowding cares of sovereignty and the distraction of churchmen and contending nobles.Such indeed had Hexham Hall been in the days of old. Princesses had lived there in the time of their tutelage—princesses who must have chafed, and perhaps cherished rebellious thoughts; perhaps dreamed over the policy which they would carry out when they became queens—for queens they did become in due course of time, and having uncontrolled power, they did carry out that[317]policy; nor was blood spared in the process which a lofty and fearless ideal of the ‘might, majesty, and dominion’ of Britain demanded. An estate of twelve thousand acres went with the property.It was favourably situated in the matter of sport and social centres. Several packs of hounds met within easy distance. The shooting was good, and had been carefully preserved. There was a trout stream such as would have delighted the heart of the ‘Compleat Angler,’ particularly a stretch of water not far from a ruined mill, which, owing to latter-day mechanical inventions, had been put out of commission.There was a gamekeeper who went with the estate, and whose keen, courageous expression at once enlisted the sympathies of the younger Australians. His cottage, his neatly dressed wife and children, with their air of deep respectfulness and old-fashioned curtseys, delighted them beyond mention. The coops with young pheasants—the lovely setters and retrievers—private property of the keeper—such a dear feudal name, as Vanda observed: these were some of the new possessions which went far to reconcile the daughters of the house to their removal from the Hotel Cecil, with its endless joys.The purchase of the baronial residence of Hexham Hall had been carried to completion with marvellous ease and celerity.The Bannerets’ legal representative had met the family lawyer of the Hexham properties, and after certain conferences, with more or less courteous[318]but pointed argument, a cheque signed by Arnold Banneret for the largest amount ever drawn by him was handed over, in exchange for which acquittances and title-deeds, some of curiously ancient date, were deposited in Messrs. Close and Carforth’s deed-box.The Australian family now felt themselves to be invested with all manner of feudal attributes; not perhaps quite including the privilege of ‘pit and gallows,’ but, for all that, delightfully autocratic of flavour and suggestion. They began to feel reconciled.After the removal from town, which was effected with exceptional speed and completeness, a rearrangement of the furniture was, of course, necessary. The owner, an impoverished Earl with a family, had lived on the Continent for years past. He therefore welcomed the possession of so large a sum in cash, a portion of which, much to his private gratification, he was enabled to devote to the clearing off of long-standing debts, as well as to matters of family convenience. Lord Hexham, indeed, came over from Bruges to ratify all arrangements made by agents and representatives, and to have, as he explained to Mr. Banneret, a short ‘run up to town on his own,’ so as to look in at his clubs, to escape the monotony of the life at Bruges, which, though economically prudent, was far from entertaining. ‘Nothing to do, day after day, but to look at that confounded Cathedral, which I know by heart—and all the Johnnies rave about till it’s perfectly sickenin’. Never cared much about architecture—hardly[319]know whether my own place is Tudor or Gothic. Most awfully obliged to you, my dear fellow, for taking it off my hands, and so on. Benefactor to the deservin’ poor, don’t-cher-know—that sort of thing. Is there anything I can do to oblige you? Only say the word!’‘I don’t see that there is anything more,’ said the purchaser, ‘that isn’t included in the agreement. Oh, by the bye, there are a few articles of furniture, an old dower-chest with parchments, some antique volumes, charters, and so on. I’m a bit of an antiquarian in my leisure hours—having more than I care for now, sorry to say. Would your man of law put a price upon them—that is, of course, if you have no dislike to part with them—heirlooms probably?’‘Would I turn them into cash? Like a bird, my dear fellow—your man and mine can fight it out between them. You could have the title too, if there was no law to prevent it. Many a time I’ve wished I could melt it, like the family plate. Some of ithasgone that way. You smile! It’s the “frozen truth,” as our friend Lady Neuchatel says.’‘Of course you’re joking; your family succession——’‘Not a bit of it. Talked it over with her Ladyship and the children many a time. Jack, my eldest son—he’s in the Guards—quite agrees with me. So do the girls. “Oh, take the cash, and let the title go.” Saw it inOmar Khayyám, she said. Clever girl, Corisande! “Broken gods no use any more, in modern times, without the money.[320]Rank without money the worst form of genteel poverty.” Give you my word, Mr. Banneret, it’s most refreshin’ start I’ve had for years. To think of a decent credit at one’s private bank account! Excuse my high spirits—makes me feel like a boy again—not good form, I admit, but situation exceptional.’Arnold Banneret and this impoverished peer ‘got on,’ as the phrase is, wonderfully well together. Like most Englishmen of rank, he was utterly unaffected, never having had to take thought about his position, or to trouble himself as to the amount of consideration due to it. Sufficient deference is cheerfully yielded to Lords and Honourables in England and her colonies, whether rich or poor, as long as they merit respect from personal character. If they are not so honoured it is entirely due to their want of the qualities which are attributed to their birth and breeding. Lord Hexham had been in the army; had sold out when he succeeded to the title; married shortly afterwards, and, without being very extravagant, had lived a careless, easy life, until the foreclosure of a long-standing mortgage, and the accumulation of unpaid debts and obligations, compelled a surrender. His family was fairly large—four sons and three daughters—the eldest son in the army, second navy, two younger boys still at school. For the girls—Corisande was grown up; Adeline coming on, ambitious and slightly combative; Mildred still with her governess. When all liabilities had been liquidated or arranged, it was decided in a sort of[321]advisory committee, partly composed of creditors and partly of relatives, that the family must settle for the next few years in a cheap place, somewhere on the Continent, where the girls could learn music and languages. But all expensive amusements—travel, sport, house in town, yachting, etc.—must be done with once and for all. If the rents were regularly devoted to payment of creditors and the release of mortgages for a few years, the estate would be, perhaps not quite free from debt, but in a condition to allow the head of the house a reasonable income, and to afford the young people all the reasonable social advantages to which, by their birth and station, they had a natural claim. The position was felt by the Earl to be, in some respects, ‘rather hard lines upon a fellow who hadn’t had much spending out of the big indebtedness which had brought the family ship aground.’ But it was felt that there was nothing else for it, and his Lordship, taking his wife’s advice, submitted to it with a fairly good grace.‘Deuced hard for your Ladyship, come to think—and the girls won’t like it one bit. But they’re young, and will get their music, and all the rest of it, as good in Bruges, perhaps better, than in London—cheaper too, ever so much cheaper. Jack and Falkland will be fighting England’s foes on sea and land. Mustn’t outrun the constable, though; but they’re steady chaps, particularly Jack—that’s one comfort. And if—I say if—we can put in five years in this kind of rustication, well, we’re not too old yet; we may look forward[322]to a clean sheet, and a little reasonable fun, in our—what’s the old song say?—“our declinin’ days,” declinin’ days—that’s good, isn’t it? Well, I’ll try to do my part—Iknowyou’ll do yours.’That settled it. The hunters, the carriage horses, the park hacks, were sold; the choice little herd of Jerseys, the greyhound kennel, were disposed of. The well-known historic estate of Hexham was finally sold out and out, to the wonder and surprise of the country people, who had a fixed idea that it belonged to the Crown, or, in some mysterious way, could not be disposed of without the royal sanction. However, itwassold, everything advertised in the county paper, and a large attendance witnessed the disposal of all the belongings and valuables not secured by special deed of settlement.The all-important transaction being legally, equitably, peacefully concluded, everything being brought to the hammer—a few heirlooms in the shape of pictures, statuary, etc., being reserved,—Lord Hexham gave up his right and title to house and lands, and the new family acquired possession of the old Hall and the old acres.It was a portentous proceeding, the girls considered, who acknowledged a feeling half of awe and half of triumph as they found themselves in possession of the ancient keep, with embattled walls, towers, and a portion of a deep and broad moat. They were driven through the Norman archway, seen through great elms and walnut trees, partly concealing the quaint high chimneys of the outbuildings, preserved through the[323]entreaties, even threats, of Lady Ermentrude. The Dowager Countess reached her ninetieth year before she surrendered her state and the deference which she exacted as due to the most exalted pedigree in Britain. A portion of ‘the flanking towers, with turrets high,’ did certainly look rather grim and menacing, favouring the idea that an attack in force might be expected at any time. But the remaining portion of the great building, or rather the collection of buildings, had been so modernised, that the perfection of comfort and artistic elegance demanded by latter-day life had been secured, combined with the luxurious amplitude of quasi-royal apartments. It was wonderful how the huge building had lent itself to ornamentation, to surprises, and luxurious lounging nooks and corners. Here quiet converse might be had by congenial spirits, or wide landscapes surveyed, beauteous with glimpses of lake and river varying the cultured sweep of pasture and arable, which seemed only to end with the horizon.
‘Really,’ said Vanda, ‘when we want to see our Australian friends, the proper thing is to come to England. We have certainly met more in a month here than we ever did in a year in the colonies.’
‘And we never should have fallen across Captain Hay——I beg his pardon, Captain Bucklaw in Australia,’ assented Hermione. ‘I wonder what will be his end. Something romantic and far from peaceful, I feel certain. Oh, here he comes to say good-bye! Why can’t he stay another day, I wonder?’
‘Reasons of State! The Captain never stays long in one place, I’ve remarked,’ said Mr. Lilburne, who, with his wife, now joined them. ‘He had a wire from his agent that the cargo was complete, and theHaitchi Maruonly waiting for her commander.’
Mr. and Mrs. Banneret now came forward, while the Lilburnes shook hands warmly with the man who had been their friend in need, whatever might have been his career under other circumstances.
[299]‘Weshall never forget you,’ said Mrs. Lilburne; ‘you saved two lives when you rescued Alister from that inferno.’
‘The Captain knows he may count on us whenever he likes to call,’ said her husband. ‘We hope to be able to repay him in kind.’
‘It was time for us to go, my lads;It was time for us to go,’
‘It was time for us to go, my lads;It was time for us to go,’
‘It was time for us to go, my lads;It was time for us to go,’
‘It was time for us to go, my lads;
It was time for us to go,’
said he, chaunting the refrain of an old sailor-song, in deep melodious tones. ‘I have never yet been caught napping, but, believe me, this meeting of true friends will be among the most precious memories of a reckless life, and if any of the present company should find themselves in danger on sea, or land, within a hundred miles of this skipper, he’ll effect a diversion if it’s in the power of mortal man. But, after all, it’s a ten-to-one chance we never meet again. Think of me as one who might have been a better man with better luck. Adios, señora. Adios, Don Carlos Alvarez. Adios, señoritas.’ Here he shook hands once more with the men, and bowing low to the girls and Mrs. Banneret, strode away to a swift hansom which awaited him, and disappeared from their eyes.
There was a peculiar feeling, somewhat allied to regret, yet perhaps even more to relief, when their picturesquely lawless friend took his departure. This sentiment was shared in lesser degree by the older, more experienced individuals of the party. But the girls were frankly grieved at the loss of so romantic an acquaintance—the tears, indeed, coming into Vanda’s eyes as she realised[300]that she could hardly hope to know ‘a real pirate’ again.
‘Do you think he reallywasengaged in the Black Flag business—death’s head and crossbones, and so on?’ queried Eric.
‘I don’t think that was ever proved,’ answered Lilburne; ‘more likely a trifle of privateering, or “blackbirding,” as labour-recruiting was called in the early days of the Queensland sugar-planting industry. But therewasa warrant out for him, and, indeed, for Hilary Telfer—that tall, fair man standing near Mrs. Banneret with his lovely wife; he was supercargo on board the famousLeonora.’
‘What a beautiful creature she is!’ said Hermione; ‘what a figure, what eyes, and such a face, lit up by a charming smile! She is something like a Spanish girl we saw at Santa Barbara, and yet not quite the same type—far more beautiful, with grace personified. I can’t quite place her.’
‘She is a descendant of Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutineers of theBounty, who disappeared somewhere about the year 1788, and formed that very interesting community at Pitcairn Island. They were not discovered until September 1808, when Captain Folger, of the American shipTopaz, seeing smoke rising from an island, from which a canoe was approaching, was hailed by the occupants in good Saxon English. “Won’t you heave us a rope, now?” was the request from the frail bark, and, a rope being thrown out, a fine young man sprang actively on deck. “I’m Thursday October Christian,” he said modestly, “son of Fletcher[301]Christian, and the first man born on the island.” H.M.S. theBritonand theTagus—the former commanded by Sir T. Staines—were in search of an American ship which had seized some English whalers, when they suddenly came in sight of an uncharted island. It was Pitcairn, but should have been two hundred miles distant—being placed on the chart by Captain Carteret (who discovered it in 1767) three degrees out of its true longitude.’
‘It seems almost incredible,’ said Mr. Banneret, ‘that a canoe carried on a man’s shoulders should be safely handled amidst such terrific surges, but I recollect seeing Australian aboriginals at Two-fold Bay carrying their bark canoeson their headsto the water, and fishing successfully when it was by no means smooth. English-speaking strangers proved themselves to be unsurpassed boatmen—to be recognised in the aftertime as such amongst the best whalemen in the world. Twenty years had elapsed since Fletcher Christian and his mutineer associates, with their Tahitian wives, had left Mataavai Bay. During the whole of that time the actors in the tragedy had disappeared from mortal ken as completely as if they had been sunk “deeper than plummet lies,” with their broken-up and abandoned vessel theBounty.’
In 1808 Captain Mayhew Folger first came upon the little community of Pitcairn Island; in 1814 the Anglo-Tahitians had increased to the number of forty. Nothing was done by the British Government until 1825, when Captain Beechey, in theBlossom, on a voyage of discovery,[302]paid a visit to Pitcairn Island. A boat under sail was observed coming towards the ship. The crew consisted of old Adams and ten young men of the island. The young men were tall, robust, and healthy, with good-natured countenances, and a simplicity of manner combined with a fear of doing something that might be wrong, which prevented the possibility of giving offence. None of them had shoes or stockings. Adams, in his sixty-fifth year, was dressed in a sailor’s shirt and trousers, and wore a low-crowned hat. He still retained his sailor manners, doffing his hat whenever he was addressed by the officers.
Sir Thomas Staines’s letter, written on 18th October 1814, stated that every individual on the island (forty in number) spoke excellent English. They proved to be the descendants of the deluded crew of theBounty. The venerable old man, John Adams, was the only surviving Englishman of those who last quitted Tahiti in her. The pious manner in which all those born on the island had been reared, and the correct sense of religion which had been instilled into their young minds by the old man, had given him the pre-eminence over the whole of them. And to him they looked up as the Patriarch of their tribe.
. . . . . . . . .
The great day, the great race was over. The Australian family had enjoyed their modest triumph in seeing the good horse from a sister colony win the blue ribbon of the great cross-country contest, coming in victorious over hedge and ditch,[303]brook and rail, with the best blood of England eight lengths behind. That was an honour which could never be taken away from them. In years to come any of them would be able to say, ‘I saw Moifaa sweep over the four miles and a half of a stiff course (as English people reckon) with as much ease as if it had been a hurdle race. And until we see an imported horse from England win a steeplechase at Flemington, we shall be entitled to hold that the horses bred south of the line possess unequalled speed, stoutness, and jumping ability.’
From the far ocean-surrounded islands of the south land, where still linger the traces of the moa, and the apteryx perplexes the tourist, to the torrid levels of the West Australian fields, where the miner’s harvest is weighed and reckoned in ounces of fine gold, the love of athletic sports, which the British emigrants carried with them, has caused their representative champions to be respected from India to the Pole.
After this equine battle of Waterloo it was, of course, natural for the victorious Austro-Britons to fall back upon their base in London—the Hotel Cecil, where they and the Allied Forces might arrange for future operations during the spring and summer campaigns.
The Bannerets were not, as may be imagined, without acquaintances, and, indeed, friends of long standing in high places. Cadets of noble houses had visited Australia in the early ’fifties (1852 to 1856), when the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo, Eaglehawk and Maryborough, were at[304]their marvellous height of productiveness; where, also, the purchase of a few shares overnight might result in a fortune before breakfast for the investor. Besides such glimpses into Aladdin’s cave, there was the entirely new spectacle of goldfields, where the precious metal might be seen in the matrix, and the operations for its extraction by chance workers of every degree of age, nationality, or occupation witnessed. It was a fascinating and novel experience to watch the process in shallow ground, hardly less primitive than the ordinary digging of potatoes: to mark the runaway sailors, farm hands, shepherds, or stock-riders, joking the while, as they occasionally threw up a ten- or twenty-ounce ‘nugget’ of almost pure gold, worth £4 per ounce, or a lump of the gold-studded quartz, to the tourist bystander peering down the edge of the shaft, with the touching confidence that it would be punctiliously returned, after being wondered at, and perhaps weighed, by the obliged stranger. Such things sound improbable, but are, nevertheless, strictly, rigidly true, as can be avouched by any miner of the period. The neighbouring squatters, in a general way men of birth and breeding, had been pleased to welcome these agreeable strangers to their homes, where, the daughters of the land being often handsome and attractive, the stranger guest had no particular objection to prolonging his stay when his hosts and other neighbouring magnates were so anxious to secure his society.
Lord Salisbury was known to have lived in a[305]tent, with a friend or two,more Australico, and personally, as ‘Mr. Cecil,’ studied the humours of a ‘rush’ near Bendigo. As he did not stay long or, presumably, make a fortune, he probably consoled himself with the reflection that he had gained the rare experience of a personal examination of a vast colonial industry at first hand, which would be valuable in forming political opinion as to the treatment of British colonies, under new and original conditions. In the light of his Lordship’s ministerial responsibilities in later life, perhaps it was well for him that he should be in a position to observe the process of formation of a British state, with municipal, mercantile, civil, and military functions, of a character befitting the Empire, evolved from the heterogeneous components of a goldfields population. How doubtful, how improbable, that order, achievement, high attainment, should ever have been so produced, contemporary journalists and visitors have left on record. For the proof,respice finem, behold the tree-shaded street, broad, straight, tram-pervaded, at Ballarat; the lake where formerly the wild duck swam amid the reedy marsh; the steamers thereon which equalise the traffic; the gardens where the weary tourist may rest, or read, upon a bench prepared by the municipalities, while he gazes around on the wide transformed landscape. Naval officers, cadets of great houses, budding field-marshals, had all been temporarily adopted at Arnold Banneret’s paternal home. The middies were now, some of them, admirals; the Honourable Mr. Sedley and Mr. Villiers were now barons[306]and earls, having ‘come into their kingdoms,’ so to speak.
They did not forget the friends who had dined and mounted them, provided shooting and hunting parties, thought nothing too good for them; and invitations flowed into the Hotel Cecil for garden parties, dances, dinners—in fact, all the gaieties of the season.
And what a season it was! ‘Oh to be in England, now that April’s here!’ For the nonce it was a fine, warm, evendrysummer, which enhanced the green glory of the century-old oaks, the ‘immemorial elms,’ and the various flowers of the great parks and also of the natural woodland. What joy it was to these young people to wander with their brothers along the ‘leafy lanes, where the trees met overhead, when the merry brooks ran clear and gay’! To note, lying underneath the aged oaks, the skylark rising from the field, and pealing his matin song of gladness.
‘Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,And Phœbus ’gins arise,His steeds to water at those springsOn chaliced flowers that lies;And winking Mary-buds beginTo ope their golden eyes:With everything that pretty is,My lady sweet, arise!’
‘Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,And Phœbus ’gins arise,His steeds to water at those springsOn chaliced flowers that lies;And winking Mary-buds beginTo ope their golden eyes:With everything that pretty is,My lady sweet, arise!’
‘Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,And Phœbus ’gins arise,His steeds to water at those springsOn chaliced flowers that lies;And winking Mary-buds beginTo ope their golden eyes:With everything that pretty is,My lady sweet, arise!’
‘Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise!’
quoted Hermione.
Then the wild-flowers: what a feast of plant life! What various colour, shape, bloom—of every shade and tint, from the dingle, ‘where the rath violets grow,’ to the daffodil bank, by the[307]sun-kissed lake. ‘Isn’t that delicious?’ said Hermione; ‘who but our Shakespeare could have pictured so delightfully the lovely summer of old England, with the hedgerows and the pastures all glistening with dew! That dear lark is coming down again—a living song, floating through the blue ocean of sky—singing as he falls. Then at last dropping like a stone into the field—I saw him close to that patch of red clover.’
‘Butwehave skylarks in Australia,’ said Vanda, who objected to unqualified praise of England for being England; ‘our bird doesn’t fly so high, certainly, and stops more quickly, but he sings a sweet little tuneful lay. He has not had a thousand years in which to practise.’
This colloquy took place one morning before breakfast, at which unusual time, about 5A.M., these young people elected to get up, for once in a way, that they might be enabled to say they had seen an English sunrise, and heard an English skylark. They were staying at an old—ever so old English hall, where everything was in keeping with tradition and history. The century-old oaks were there; the forest was the same, mercifully spared, and lovingly tended; the aged oaks were the immediate descendants of those under which Gurth and Wamba lay and chaunted their roundelay when Bois-Guilbert, the Templar of the period, inquired the way to Rotherwood, and was directed all wrong by the eccentric Wamba.
Yes! there were the oaks, huge of girth, mighty of spread and shade, and clothed to the very tips of their enormous branches with delicate leaflets, bursting[308]buds, and every variety of leafage which goes to furbish up the glorious green garb of an English spring.
Now that the spring had arrived, the real English spring—written about, talked about, sung about by everybody that had ever been in England, or read about the great and glorious Motherland—they were all mad with hope and expectation, also with ardent desire to go in and possess the land of faerie. Fortunately, for once, the climate did not betray them. The weather continued fine and open. Frosts were few and far between. The grass in the meadows, thick and verdant, spread a velvet garment over all the land. Over the fields around stood ancient farm-houses, near villages with names as old as the Norman Conquest. Around were ruined abbeys and crumbling spires, besides bridges over brooks, where swam the fat carp which had tempted the monks to sink their foundations first, and to follow up with the stately piles, which sheltered so many a lordly abbot and his train of cowled brethren, lay and spiritual, with servitors, tenants, and retainers, military and otherwise.
All this strengthened the desire of the Bannerets to establish themselves in a country residence, whence they might issue forth in quest of the more desirable entertainments, at the same time preserving the home feeling, and having apied à terrewhich would give them standing in the county superior to that of mere birds of passage.
The girls of the family, now that the spring was distinctly on, and the summer, by natural course of nature, might be expected to follow,[309]desired no change. They felt, and indeed repeatedly affirmed, that their cup of joy was full—that they never expected to be so truly, consciously, ecstatically happy. Every night Hermione and Vanda retired, after a day filled with novel and delicious sensations, to dream of a new kind of felicity on the morrow; a forecast the reality of which rarely disappointed them. Their parents occasionally uttered a note of warning as to the too eager pursuit of pleasure, and the need of moderation even, on the score of health. But there was small reason for caution on that score: the young people had exceptionally strong constitutions—sound, unworn, and elastic, with all the marvellous recuperative power of early youth. Their cousins and friends in the country districts of Australia had been known to ride thirty or forty miles to a ball, at which to dance until daylight afterwards, with but little or no fatigue. They belonged to the same type, and were not a whit behind them in endurance, defying fatigue or lassitude where pleasure or interesting travel was concerned. So all manner of recreative experiences had been tested—hackneys for the park, rides and drives, concerts and theatres, balls and parties, receptions given by certain returned Governors, to whom they had been socially known in Australia. These proconsuls lost no time in inviting them to entertainments where they met various great ones of the land, to whom it was explained that they were really ‘nice’—distinguished even in a sense, and ever so rich—owning gold mines of unquestioned, almost fabulous richness.
There was then no difficulty about invitations[310]and engagements; the trouble was to keep up with them all, and so arrange that they did not clash, and at the same time to find out the right people at whose entertainments to be ‘seen.’ They were naturally popular in this new environment, with more or less foreign elements. The girls were voted pretty (Hermione, indeed, was very handsome), well dressed, well mannered, and above all ‘nice’—that mysterious adjective which goes for so much in English society. The young men, too, were good-looking, well turned out, and so closely resembling Englishmen of their age and standing, that surprise was expressed that they should be Australians, there being no peculiarity of accent, or appearance, betokening their colonial origin. They were also athletic beyond average form—being skilled at tennis, cricket, and other fashionable games.
Now the vitally important matter next on hand was the selection of a home. Mr. Banneret, after due consideration, had decided to invest in an estate. The Hotel Cecil was well managed, comfortable, even luxurious. It was, of course, expensive, even perhaps extravagant. But that was not the reason for disapproval. Money was no object, as the phrase runs.
Still, Arnold Banneret and his wife disliked hotel lifeen permanence. The continual change of acquaintances, with whom a certain sort of association was almost impossible to avoid, was distasteful to them. They did not, as their experience matured, think it, in all respects, beneficial to the girls. For them and their brothers they[311]wished to re-create the home feeling. They longed for the change once more to peaceful country life—where they might live among such neighbours as made the chief rural luxury, and secure, if such might be, valuable and enduring friendships.
To this end it was decided tobuyan estate. Leased houses, with perhaps suitable grounds, furniture, and belongings, were all very well in their way. But people’s ideas about furniture and other matters differed widely sometimes. And, at the delivering-up day, misunderstandings were likely to arise—had arisen within their experience. Thus it was decided to buy. They could then comfort themselves with knowing that they were safely settled for years to come—could not be turned out by the whim of the proprietor, or any one else. And if the worst came to the worst, and circumstances compelled them to return to their own country, they could, of course, re-sell; and as estates in England, valuable and well placed, did not vary much in value, they could get their money back without serious deduction.
The girls at first did not take kindly to the idea. They found their present mode of existence much to their taste. But their mother had with some regret observed that a subtle change was taking place in the character of her daughters. Constant amusement, of course, they had no difficulty in procuring. It was furnished without effort on their part. But it pained her to discover that an alteration of taste was even now showing itself. They did not care so much for the more[312]rational forms of amusement; they began to crave more and more for excitement; and provided that it was of a sufficiently novel and bizarre nature, they seemed, to her watchful eye, to be growing more and more careless of surroundings, and of the status of the people with whom they were necessarily associated.
In order to combat this feeling, and to render the departure from the Hotel Cecil, and its continuous round of gaieties, less depressing, Mrs. Banneret began diplomatically to descant upon the more permanently attractive features of English country life,—the ancient trees, the historical associations of the manor-house and the grounds; the neighbouring gentry, the hunting fixtures, the pleasant parties made up for shooting, coursing, fishing, and other time-honoured sports, for the performance of which desirable guests would be brought down from town or invited from neighbouring families; the archery meetings, after which it was the fashion of the county to have impromptu dances; the hounds on the lawn, the distinguished personages, the aristocratic M.F.H., the ‘coffee-house’ feature of the meets, the hunting women, the road riders, their friends, and other people’s friends, the garden parties—in short, all the hundred and one pleasant meetings, half sport, half business, which only a country life could adequately provide.
‘Think,’ she said, ‘my dear girls, what a different life it would be for us all! Your father is pining for a return to regular home life, such[313]as he and I enjoyed when you were little, and which, in spite of the troubles of a Gold Commissioner’s life, we even now look back upon as our happiest days. He wants to have a decent stable, a couple of hacks, a brace or two of hunters; his phaeton pair, and a dogcart horse; a landau for me and you on great occasions; a safe hunter apiece for you girls, and perhaps another, or so, for a friend. Besides, with a moderate-sized estate—ten or twelve thousand acres—he can enjoy some shooting and amateur farming, which will give him healthy exercise—he doesn’t get enough now, and it’s bad for him. He’s getting too stout; you see that yourselves, don’t you? Then we shall be the Bannerets of Hexham Hall. I feel quite like the Lady of the Manor already.’
As the good matron kept summing up the joys of this ideal life—the glorious awakening in the fresh, sweet atmosphere of the country, the song of the birds, the dewy lawns—the girls watched her face glow and her eyes sparkle with almost youthful lustre. They could bear the situation no longer.
‘Mother! dear mother!’ cried Hermione, ‘don’t go on—I can’t bear it. We have been wicked, selfish girls not to have seen it before. I thought you and father had been looking out of spirits lately. I see now how it was telling on you. We’ll go, Vanda, wherever we are told. It’s a shame that we should have had to be asked. Only we must have a family council before the place—the manor, the castle, or whatever it is to[314]be—is finally decided upon. It can’t be so very dreadful after all.’
‘Dreadful!’ cried Vanda; ‘it’s delicious. I’ll undertake the dairy—and we must have lots of lovely tiles, and such cream-pans, and a floor like glass, and walls that can be washed down twice a day. The next thing is to find the Castle of Otranto. Will there be ruins, ghosts, and a helmet to fall down with a crash? I must have vaults, too, and a secret passage, where the former lord of the castle was concealed when the Roundheads sacked it. And such a range of stabling, too! I must have two hunters if I am to keep up my riding.’
The sons gave their unhesitating opinion in favour of the estate. Land was cheap in England at present—many of the owners being only too glad to get rid of property which paid ridiculously low in interest on capital, and was year by year involving the so-called proprietor in heavier expense. As to the value of a large historic family mansion, it was looked upon as the proverbial white elephant, which the owners would be only too pleased to get rid of, once and for ever.
Then the choice—that was the difficulty. Arnold Banneret shuddered when he thought of the scores of desirable places, old and half-ruinous, ill-drained, decayed, damp, smothered in ivy, shaded by vast growths of world-old groves that it would be sacrilege to cut down, and death by slow and gradual process to leave unaltered. The new mansion ghastly with stucco—redolent of fresh paint—the mistaken ambition of the[315]manufacturer, tired of so soon after the contractor was paid, and disgracefully new like the baronetcy; these and other failures, like Banquo’s line of shadowy kings, passed before him in review, until he almost resolved to cut the whole concern and go back to Australia, where, at any rate, one could enjoy one’s life in peace. This was after a long day’s rail to examine an over-praised, over-valued, highly unsuitable investment, with too much house and too little land—both being indecently inferior in quality, besides being in a dull and undesirable county.
‘It was thought,’ declared the agent, ‘that it would just suit a gentleman from Australia, being a bit wild-like, and not too trim and polished up, as it were.’ He seemed surprised at being curtly informed that a man did not come all the way from Australia to encumber himself with an indifferent house and exceptionally bad land, as the attempts at crops plainly showed; that he had been misled by the advertisement, and would be sorry to take the place as a gift.
This was a bad beginning, but his wife comforted him by saying that she could see that he had been so bored by inaction that he was evidently glad of the chance of taking a journeysomewhere, if only to end in disappointment; that she was glad to see that he had so much of his old energy left; that she must go with him next time, when better counsels would prevail, and success attend them eventually.
At length, after tedious delays and disappointing inspections of every kind of country house—mansion,[316]manor, and historic castellated abode—even including a moat, an altogether satisfactory purchase was effected. The place was historic, a royal princess had lived there under strict guardianship during her nonage. The place was certainly far from modern in outward appearance, but the interior had been restored tastefully, and in accordance with the latest requirements, by the owner, who, having fallen upon evil times, was only too pleased to take a moderate price in cash for a property which, with costly renovation and additions, had cost a third more than the sale price. When the probable purchaser and his wife ran down by train to have a full and leisurely inspection, they were more pleased than they cared to show at thecoup d’œil.
It was the early forenoon. The day was fine—the air mild, almost breezeless; the great oaks, the venerable elms, the ancient walls which surrounded the ‘pleasaunce,’ gave the whole place the look of a monarch’s retreat for the time when he might wish to rest from the cares of State and enjoy a rare solitude, apart from the crowding cares of sovereignty and the distraction of churchmen and contending nobles.
Such indeed had Hexham Hall been in the days of old. Princesses had lived there in the time of their tutelage—princesses who must have chafed, and perhaps cherished rebellious thoughts; perhaps dreamed over the policy which they would carry out when they became queens—for queens they did become in due course of time, and having uncontrolled power, they did carry out that[317]policy; nor was blood spared in the process which a lofty and fearless ideal of the ‘might, majesty, and dominion’ of Britain demanded. An estate of twelve thousand acres went with the property.
It was favourably situated in the matter of sport and social centres. Several packs of hounds met within easy distance. The shooting was good, and had been carefully preserved. There was a trout stream such as would have delighted the heart of the ‘Compleat Angler,’ particularly a stretch of water not far from a ruined mill, which, owing to latter-day mechanical inventions, had been put out of commission.
There was a gamekeeper who went with the estate, and whose keen, courageous expression at once enlisted the sympathies of the younger Australians. His cottage, his neatly dressed wife and children, with their air of deep respectfulness and old-fashioned curtseys, delighted them beyond mention. The coops with young pheasants—the lovely setters and retrievers—private property of the keeper—such a dear feudal name, as Vanda observed: these were some of the new possessions which went far to reconcile the daughters of the house to their removal from the Hotel Cecil, with its endless joys.
The purchase of the baronial residence of Hexham Hall had been carried to completion with marvellous ease and celerity.
The Bannerets’ legal representative had met the family lawyer of the Hexham properties, and after certain conferences, with more or less courteous[318]but pointed argument, a cheque signed by Arnold Banneret for the largest amount ever drawn by him was handed over, in exchange for which acquittances and title-deeds, some of curiously ancient date, were deposited in Messrs. Close and Carforth’s deed-box.
The Australian family now felt themselves to be invested with all manner of feudal attributes; not perhaps quite including the privilege of ‘pit and gallows,’ but, for all that, delightfully autocratic of flavour and suggestion. They began to feel reconciled.
After the removal from town, which was effected with exceptional speed and completeness, a rearrangement of the furniture was, of course, necessary. The owner, an impoverished Earl with a family, had lived on the Continent for years past. He therefore welcomed the possession of so large a sum in cash, a portion of which, much to his private gratification, he was enabled to devote to the clearing off of long-standing debts, as well as to matters of family convenience. Lord Hexham, indeed, came over from Bruges to ratify all arrangements made by agents and representatives, and to have, as he explained to Mr. Banneret, a short ‘run up to town on his own,’ so as to look in at his clubs, to escape the monotony of the life at Bruges, which, though economically prudent, was far from entertaining. ‘Nothing to do, day after day, but to look at that confounded Cathedral, which I know by heart—and all the Johnnies rave about till it’s perfectly sickenin’. Never cared much about architecture—hardly[319]know whether my own place is Tudor or Gothic. Most awfully obliged to you, my dear fellow, for taking it off my hands, and so on. Benefactor to the deservin’ poor, don’t-cher-know—that sort of thing. Is there anything I can do to oblige you? Only say the word!’
‘I don’t see that there is anything more,’ said the purchaser, ‘that isn’t included in the agreement. Oh, by the bye, there are a few articles of furniture, an old dower-chest with parchments, some antique volumes, charters, and so on. I’m a bit of an antiquarian in my leisure hours—having more than I care for now, sorry to say. Would your man of law put a price upon them—that is, of course, if you have no dislike to part with them—heirlooms probably?’
‘Would I turn them into cash? Like a bird, my dear fellow—your man and mine can fight it out between them. You could have the title too, if there was no law to prevent it. Many a time I’ve wished I could melt it, like the family plate. Some of ithasgone that way. You smile! It’s the “frozen truth,” as our friend Lady Neuchatel says.’
‘Of course you’re joking; your family succession——’
‘Not a bit of it. Talked it over with her Ladyship and the children many a time. Jack, my eldest son—he’s in the Guards—quite agrees with me. So do the girls. “Oh, take the cash, and let the title go.” Saw it inOmar Khayyám, she said. Clever girl, Corisande! “Broken gods no use any more, in modern times, without the money.[320]Rank without money the worst form of genteel poverty.” Give you my word, Mr. Banneret, it’s most refreshin’ start I’ve had for years. To think of a decent credit at one’s private bank account! Excuse my high spirits—makes me feel like a boy again—not good form, I admit, but situation exceptional.’
Arnold Banneret and this impoverished peer ‘got on,’ as the phrase is, wonderfully well together. Like most Englishmen of rank, he was utterly unaffected, never having had to take thought about his position, or to trouble himself as to the amount of consideration due to it. Sufficient deference is cheerfully yielded to Lords and Honourables in England and her colonies, whether rich or poor, as long as they merit respect from personal character. If they are not so honoured it is entirely due to their want of the qualities which are attributed to their birth and breeding. Lord Hexham had been in the army; had sold out when he succeeded to the title; married shortly afterwards, and, without being very extravagant, had lived a careless, easy life, until the foreclosure of a long-standing mortgage, and the accumulation of unpaid debts and obligations, compelled a surrender. His family was fairly large—four sons and three daughters—the eldest son in the army, second navy, two younger boys still at school. For the girls—Corisande was grown up; Adeline coming on, ambitious and slightly combative; Mildred still with her governess. When all liabilities had been liquidated or arranged, it was decided in a sort of[321]advisory committee, partly composed of creditors and partly of relatives, that the family must settle for the next few years in a cheap place, somewhere on the Continent, where the girls could learn music and languages. But all expensive amusements—travel, sport, house in town, yachting, etc.—must be done with once and for all. If the rents were regularly devoted to payment of creditors and the release of mortgages for a few years, the estate would be, perhaps not quite free from debt, but in a condition to allow the head of the house a reasonable income, and to afford the young people all the reasonable social advantages to which, by their birth and station, they had a natural claim. The position was felt by the Earl to be, in some respects, ‘rather hard lines upon a fellow who hadn’t had much spending out of the big indebtedness which had brought the family ship aground.’ But it was felt that there was nothing else for it, and his Lordship, taking his wife’s advice, submitted to it with a fairly good grace.
‘Deuced hard for your Ladyship, come to think—and the girls won’t like it one bit. But they’re young, and will get their music, and all the rest of it, as good in Bruges, perhaps better, than in London—cheaper too, ever so much cheaper. Jack and Falkland will be fighting England’s foes on sea and land. Mustn’t outrun the constable, though; but they’re steady chaps, particularly Jack—that’s one comfort. And if—I say if—we can put in five years in this kind of rustication, well, we’re not too old yet; we may look forward[322]to a clean sheet, and a little reasonable fun, in our—what’s the old song say?—“our declinin’ days,” declinin’ days—that’s good, isn’t it? Well, I’ll try to do my part—Iknowyou’ll do yours.’
That settled it. The hunters, the carriage horses, the park hacks, were sold; the choice little herd of Jerseys, the greyhound kennel, were disposed of. The well-known historic estate of Hexham was finally sold out and out, to the wonder and surprise of the country people, who had a fixed idea that it belonged to the Crown, or, in some mysterious way, could not be disposed of without the royal sanction. However, itwassold, everything advertised in the county paper, and a large attendance witnessed the disposal of all the belongings and valuables not secured by special deed of settlement.
The all-important transaction being legally, equitably, peacefully concluded, everything being brought to the hammer—a few heirlooms in the shape of pictures, statuary, etc., being reserved,—Lord Hexham gave up his right and title to house and lands, and the new family acquired possession of the old Hall and the old acres.
It was a portentous proceeding, the girls considered, who acknowledged a feeling half of awe and half of triumph as they found themselves in possession of the ancient keep, with embattled walls, towers, and a portion of a deep and broad moat. They were driven through the Norman archway, seen through great elms and walnut trees, partly concealing the quaint high chimneys of the outbuildings, preserved through the[323]entreaties, even threats, of Lady Ermentrude. The Dowager Countess reached her ninetieth year before she surrendered her state and the deference which she exacted as due to the most exalted pedigree in Britain. A portion of ‘the flanking towers, with turrets high,’ did certainly look rather grim and menacing, favouring the idea that an attack in force might be expected at any time. But the remaining portion of the great building, or rather the collection of buildings, had been so modernised, that the perfection of comfort and artistic elegance demanded by latter-day life had been secured, combined with the luxurious amplitude of quasi-royal apartments. It was wonderful how the huge building had lent itself to ornamentation, to surprises, and luxurious lounging nooks and corners. Here quiet converse might be had by congenial spirits, or wide landscapes surveyed, beauteous with glimpses of lake and river varying the cultured sweep of pasture and arable, which seemed only to end with the horizon.