Rolf Boldrewood
Babes in the Bush
Certainly there was nothing heroic about the personnel of their literary visitor – an unobtrusive-looking personage. But now that he was decorated with the name of Kinghart, glorified with the reflected halo of genius, there was visible to the book-loving maiden a world of distinction in his every gesture and fragment of speech.
Then Major Glendinning, too, a man whom few would pass without a second glance. Slightly over middle height, his symmetrical figure and complete harmony of motion stamped him as one perfected by the widest experiences of training and action. ‘Soldier’ was written emphatically by years of imprint upon the fearless gaze, the imperturbable manner, the bronzed cheek, and accurate but unostentatious dress. A man who had shouldered death and had mocked danger; who had actually shed blood in action – ‘in single fight and mixed array’ (like Marmion, as Annabel said). Not in old, half-forgotten days, like their father, but in last year’s, well-nigh last month’s, deadly picturesque strife, of which the echoes were as yet scarcely silent. Annabel and Beatrice gazed at him as at a denizen of another planet, and left to Rosamond the more rare adoration which exalts the image of the scholar to a higher pedestal than that of the warrior.
There was, however, a sufficing audience and ample appreciation for both the recent lions, who were by no means suffered by their original captors to roar softly or feed undisturbed. Before sitting down to the unceremonious evening meal, Charles Hamilton begged Mrs. Effingham to defer leaving the drawing-room for a few moments while he made a needful explanation.
‘You will not be surprised to hear, Mrs. Effingham,’ he commenced, with an air of great deference, ‘that Mr. Kinghart shares his distinguished brother’s views as to our duties to the (temporarily) lower orders, and the compulsion under which the nobler minds of the century lie, to advance by personal sacrifice the social culture of their dependents, more particularly in the colonies, where (necessarily) the feelings are less sensitive. Mr. Kinghart, therefore, declines to partake of a meal in any house, unless the servants are invited to share the repast.’
‘What nonsense!’ said the gentleman referred to, rather hastily; ‘but I daresay you recognise our friend’s vein of humour, Mrs. Effingham.’
‘It’s all very well, Kinghart,’ replied Hamilton gravely; ‘but I feel pained to find a man of your intellect deserting his convictions when they clash with conventionalities. You know the Rector’s opinions as to our dependents, and here you stand, ashamed to act up to the family principles.’
‘My dear fellow, of course I support Charles’s gallant testimony to the creed of his Master, but he had no “colonial experience,” whereas I have had a great deal, which may have led me to believe that I am the deeper student of human nature. I don’t know whether I need assure Mrs. Effingham that she will find me outwardly much like other people.’
‘How few beliefs shall I retain henceforth,’ said Hamilton sorrowfully.
‘Putting socialism out of the question,’ said Mr. Kinghart, ‘I shall always regret that Charles did not avail himself of an opportunity he once had to visit Australia. He would have been charmed beyond description.’
‘I’m sure we should have been, only to see him,’ said Beatrice; ‘but I don’t know what we should have had to offer in exchange for what he would have to forgo.’
‘You are leaving out of the question the fact of my brother’s passionate love of geology, botany, and adventure. The facts in natural history to which even my small researches have led are so wonderful that I hesitate to assert them.’
‘How fascinating it must be,’ said Rosamond, ‘to be able to walk about the earth and read the book of Nature like a scroll. You and our dear old Harley seem alike in that respect. I look upon you as magicians. You have the “open sesame,” and may find the way to Ali Baba caverns full of jewels.’
‘This last is not so wildly improbable, though you over-rate my attainments,’ said their visitor, with a quiet smile. ‘I have certainly found in this neighbourhood indications of valuable minerals, not even excluding that Chief Deputy of the Prince of the Air – Gold.’
‘Why, Kinghart, you are as mad as Mr. Sternworth,’ said Hamilton. ‘All savants have a craze for impossible discoveries. How can there be gold here?’
‘I took Mr. Hamilton to be a gentleman of logical mind,’ said the Englishman quietly. ‘Why should not the sequences from geological premisses be as invariable in Australia as in any other part of the globe. The South Pole does not invert the principle of cause and effect, I presume.’
‘I did not mean that,’ explained Hamilton, with something less than his ordinary decisiveness, ‘but there seems something so preposterous in a gold-field in a new country like this.’
‘It is not a new country, it is a very old one; there was probably gold here long before it was extracted from Ophir. But your men, in digging holes yesterday for the posts of that new hut, dislodged fragments of hornblendic granite slightly decomposed and showing minute particles of gold. I had not time to examine them, but I noted the formation accurately.’
‘What then?’ said his male hearers in a kind of chorus.
‘What then? Why, it follows inexorably that we are standing above one of the richest goldfields in the known world!’
‘But assuming for a moment, which God forbid,’ said Hamilton, ‘that gold —real gold – in minute quantities could be extracted from the stone you picked up, does it follow that rich and extensive deposits should be contiguous?’
‘My dear Hamilton, you surely missed the geological course in your college studies! Gold once found amid decomposed hornblendic granite, in alluvial drifts in company with water-worn quartz, has never failed to demonstrate itself in wondrous wealth. In the Ural Mountains, in Mexico, and most likely in King Solomon’s time, there were no little mines where once this precise formation was verified.’
‘I devoutly trust that it may not be in our time,’ said Argyll. ‘What a complete overturn of society would take place; in Australia, of all places! I should lose interest in the country at once.’
‘There might be inconvenience,’ said Mr. Kinghart reflectively, ‘but the Anglo-Saxon would be found capable of organising order. We need not look so far ahead. But of the day to come, when the furnace-chimney shall smoke on these hillsides, and miles of alluvial be torn up and riddled with excavations, I am as certain as that Glossopteris, of which I have seen at least three perfect specimens in shale, denotes coal deposits.’
‘We must buy you out, Kinghart, that is the whole of it,’ said Ardmillan, ‘and direct your energies into some other channel. If you go on proving the existence of gold and black diamonds under these heedless feet of ours the social edifice will totter. Hamilton will abandon his agriculture, Argyll his stock-keeping, Churbett his reading and early rising, Mrs. Teviot will leave off cheese-making, Forbes will cease to contradict – in short, the whole Warbrok and Benmohr world will come to an end.’
‘It is a very pleasant world, and I am sorry to have hinted at the flood which will some day sweep over it,’ said Mr. Kinghart; ‘but what is written is written, and indelibly, when the pages are tables of stones, set up from the foundation of the world.’
Most enjoyable and still well remembered were the days which followed this memorable discussion. A succession of rides, drives, and excursions followed, in which Mr. Kinghart pointed out wonders in the world of botany, which caused Rosamond to look upon him as a sage of stupendous experiences.
To Howard Effingham the presence of Major Glendinning was an unalloyed pleasure. Familiar chiefly with service in other parts of the world, he was never tired of listening or questioning. Varied necessarily were incidents of warfare conducted against the wild border tribes of Hindostan with her hordes of savage horsemen. Such campaigns necessarily partook of the irregular modes of combat of the foe. Without attaching importance to his own share of distinction, their guest permitted his hearers to learn much of the picturesque and splendid successes of the British arms in the historic land of Ind.
For himself, his manner had a strange tinge of softness and melancholy. At one time his mien was that of the stern soldier, proud of the thoroughness with which a band of marauders had been extirpated, or the spirit of a dissolute native ruler broken. Scarcely had the tale been told when a settled sadness would overspread his face, as if in pity for the heathens’ spoil and sorrow. To his hearers, far from war’s alarms, there was a strong, half-painful fascination in these tales of daring, heightened by the frequent presence of death in every shape of hot-blooded carnage or military execution.
‘How difficult it is to imagine,’ said Beatrice one day, suddenly arousing herself, after staring with dilated eyeballs at the Major, who had been recounting a realistic incident for Guy’s special edification (how the Ranee of Jeypore had hanged a dozen of his best troopers, and of the stern reprisal which he was called upon to make), ‘that you, actually sitting here quietly with us, are one and the same person who was chief actor in these fearful doings. What a wonderful change it must be for you.’
‘Let me assure you,’ said the Major, ‘that it is a most pleasant change. I am tired of soldiering, and my health is indifferent. I almost think that if I could fish out this old uncle of mine, I should be content to settle in the bush, and take to rural life for the rest of my days.’
‘Don’t you think you would find it awfully dull?’ said Annabel; ‘you would despise all our life so much. Unless there happened to be an outbreak of bushrangers, you might never have a chance of killing any one again, as long as you lived.’
‘I could manage without that excitement. I have had enough, in all conscience, to last a lifetime. The climate of your country suits us old Indians so well. If I were once fairly established, I think I could rear horses and cattle, especially the former, with great contentment.’
‘There is no one of your name in this part of the country,’ said Guy, ‘except our old stock-rider, Tom. He’s such a queer old fellow. I remember asking him what his surname was one day, and he told me it was Glendinning. He’s away now, mustering at Wangarua.’
‘It is not an uncommon name where my family lived,’ said the Major. ‘I should like to see him if he is a namesake. He may have heard of the person I am in search of.’
The whole party was extremely sorry to permit their guests to depart; but after a few days spent in luxurious intercourse, during which sight-seeing and sport were organised day by day, and every imaginable book and author reviewed with Mr. Kinghart in the evening, while Guy had fully made up his mind to go to India, and had got up Indian history from the Mogul dynasty to the execution of Omichund, a parting had to be made. It was only temporary, however, as Mr. Kinghart had promised to visit an old schoolfellow long settled at Monaro, and after a fortnight’s stay had promised to return this way with the Major before they said farewell finally. At Warbrok Chase there was great dismay at the inevitable separation.
‘I declare,’ said Annabel, ‘that I begin to doubt whether it is prudent to make such delightful acquaintances. One is so dreadfully grieved when they depart. It is much better to have everyday friends, who can’t run away, isn’t it?’
‘And who mightn’t be much missed if they did; quite so, Miss Annabel,’ said Forbes, to whom this lament was made.
‘Oh, of course you are different at Benmohr and just about here. We are all one family, and should be a very united one if Mr. Churbett would leave off teasing me about what silly people say, and Mr. Forbes would give up his sarcasms, Mr. Hamilton his logic, Mr. Argyll his tempers, and so on. How I could improve you all, to be sure! But I mean friends – that is, strangers – like Mr. Kinghart and Major Glendinning, that are birds of passage. I can’t explain myself; but I’m sure there’s something true and new about the idea.’
‘It may be quite true that young ladies prefer recently acquired friends to those of long standing, but I am afraid it is not altogether new in the history of the sex,’ said Mr. Forbes. ‘Still I think I understand you, Miss Annabel. Which of the illustrious strangers do you chiefly honour with your regrets, Miss Beatrice?’
‘I mourn over Mr. Kinghart,’ said Beatrice, with instinctive defensive art. ‘He is a library that can talk, and yet, like a library, prefers silence. I wonder if one would ever get tired of listening to him, and having everything so delightfully explained. He is sarcastic about women, too. Perhaps he has been ill-treated by some thoughtless girl. I should like to wither her.’
‘Why don’t you comfort him, Beatrice? Your love for reading would just suit, or perhaps not suit,’ said Annabel. ‘You would have to toss up which was to order dinner or make tea. I can see you both sitting in easy-chairs, with your foreheads wrinkled up, reading away the whole evening. I wonder if two poets or two authors ever agreed in married life? Of course, he might scratch out her adjectives, or she might sneer at his comic element. But, do you know, a thought strikes me. Don’t you see a likeness to some one in the Major that you’ve seen before? I do, and it haunts me.’
‘No, I never saw any one the least like him; his expression, his figure, his way of walking, riding, and talking are quite different from other people. How a man’s life moulds him! I am sure I could tell what half the men I see have been or not been, quite easily, by their appearance and ways.’
‘But did you notice his eyes?’
‘Well, they are soft, and yet piercing, which is unusual; but that is all.’
‘On second thoughts I won’t say, lest I might be thought less sensible even than I am. I have no capital to fall back upon in that respect.’
‘You do say such odd things, my dear Annabel. I think you ought to get on with our last duet. You only half know your part.’
That a certain reaction follows hard upon the most unalloyed pleasure is conceded. The dwellers at The Chase recognised a shade of monotony, even of dulness, falling upon their uneventful lives as the friends and visitors departed.
CHAPTER XVI
‘SO WE’LL ALL GO A-HUNTING TO-DAY’
The cheering results of this season of prosperity were not without effect upon the sanguine temperament of Howard Effingham. Prone to dismiss from his mind all darkly-shaded outlines, he was ever eager to develop projects which belong to the enjoyments rather than to the acquisitions of life. Few human beings had commenced with a smaller share of foresight. He required no exhortation to refrain from taking heed for the morrow and its cares. For him they could hardly be said to exist, so little did he realise in advance the more probable evils.
The time had arrived, in his opinion, to dwell less fixedly upon the problem of income. The greater question of cultured living could no longer be neglected. All danger of poverty and privation overtaking the family being removed, Mr. Effingham for some time past had devoted his mind to the assimilation of the lives of himself and his neighbours to those of the country gentlemen of his own land. Something he had already effected in this way. He had received a shipment of pheasants and partridges, which, in a suitable locality, were making headway against their natural enemies. Much of his time was spent, gun in hand, clearing the haunts of the precious Gallinæ from the unsparing dasyurus (the wild cat of the colonists), while Guy’s collection of stuffed hawks had increased notably. Orders had been given to shoot every one that could be seen, from the tiny merlin, chiefly devoted to moths and grasshoppers, to the wedge-tailed eagle eight feet between the wings, discovered on a mighty iron-bark tree, thence surveying the bright-plumaged strangers. Hares, too, and rabbits had been liberated, of which the latter had increased with suspicious rapidity.
Coursing, fishing, shooting, all of a superior description, Howard Effingham now saw with prophetic vision established for the benefit of his descendants at The Chase. They would be enabled to enjoy themselves befittingly in their seasons of leisure, and cadets of the House, when they visited England, would not have to blush for their ignorance of the out-door accomplishments of their kinsfolk. In imagination he saw
The merry brown hares come leaping
Over the crest of the hill,
or starting from their ‘forms’ in the meadows which bordered the lake. He saw the partridge coveys rise from the stubbles, and heard once more the whirr of the cock pheasant as he ‘rocketted’ from the copse of mimosa saplings. He saw carp, tench, and brown trout in the clear mountain streams, and watched far down the Otsego ‘laker’ in the still depths of their inland bay. At the idea of these triumphs, which long years after his bones rested in an exile’s grave, would be associated with the name of Howard Effingham, his heart swelled with proud anticipation. But there was one deficiency as yet unfilled; one difficulty hitherto not confronted. Much had been attempted, even something done. Why should he not be more nobly daring still? Why not organise that sport of kings, that eminently British pastime, nowhere enjoyed in perfection, hitherto, outside of the ‘happy isles’? Why not go in for fox-hunting? Could its transplantation be possible?
True, the gladdening variety of pasture and plough, meadow and woodland, over which hound and horse sweep rejoicingly in Britain, was not possible in the neighbourhood. Hedges and ditches, brooks and banks, as yet gave not change and interest to the programme while educating horse and rider. Still, he would not despair.
In the pensive, breezeless autumn, or the winter mornings, when the dew lay long on the tall grass, and the soft, hazy atmosphere gradually struggled into the brilliant Australian day, could there be better scenting weather? Would not the first cry of the hounds, as a dozen couples, to begin with, hit off the scent of a dingo or a blue forester, sound like a forgotten melody in his ears? There would be an occasional fence to give the boys emulative interest; for the rest, a gallop in the fresh morn through the park-like woodlands, or even across the spurs of the ranges, would be worth riding a few miles to enjoy. All the neighbours – now making money fast and not indisposed for amusement – would be glad to join. A better lot of fellows no Hunt ever numbered amongst its subscribers. Subscription? Well, he supposed it must be so. It would be a proprietary interest, and he was afraid Wilfred would object to the whole burden of maintenance falling upon the resources of The Chase.
This brilliant idea was not suffered to lapse for want of expansion. Energetic and persistent in the domain of the abstract or the unprofitable, Howard Effingham at once communicated with a few friends. He was surprised at the enthusiasm which the project evoked. A committee was formed, comprising the names of the Benmohr firm, Churbett, Ardmillan, Forbes, and the D’Oyleys, besides Robert Malahyde, a neighbour of Hampden’s and an enthusiastic sportsman. Never was a more happy suggestion. It pleased everybody. O’Desmond declared that the very idea recalled ‘The Blazers’; he felt himself to be ten years younger as he put down his name for a handsome subscription on the spot. Fred Churbett had always known that Duellist was thrown away as a hackney; and now that there was something more to be jumped than the Benmohr leaping-bar, did not care how early he got up. This announcement was received with shouts of incredulous laughter.
Wilfred alone was not enamoured of this new project. He foresaw direct and, still more serious, indirect expenses. It was no doubt a great matter to have even the semblance of the Great English Sport revived among them. Still, business was business. If this sort of thing was to be encouraged, there was no knowing where it would stop. He himself would be only too glad to have a run now and then, but his instinctive feeling was that he would be better employed attending to his cattle and consolidating the prosperity, which now seemed to be flowing in with a steady tide.
In truth, of late, affairs had commenced to take a most encouraging, even intoxicating turn for the better. The whole trade of the land – pastoral, commercial, and agricultural – was in a satisfactory condition, owing chiefly to unprecedentedly good seasons. All the Australian colonies, more particularly New South Wales, have within them elements of vast, well-nigh illimitable development. Nothing is needed but ordinary climatic conditions to produce an amount of material well-being, which nothing can wholly displace. The merchants of the cities, the farmers of the settled districts, the squatters of the far interior, were alike prospering and to prosper, it seemed, indefinitely. The export trade, Mr. Rockley assured him, had increased astonishingly, while the imports had so swelled that England would soon have to look upon Australia as one of her best customers.
‘So you are going to have a pack of foxhounds in your neighbourhood, Mr. Effingham?’ said Mrs. Rockley. ‘I think it a splendid idea. Chrissie and I will ride over and see one of your meets, if you ask us.’
Then did Wilfred begin solemnly to vow and declare that the chief reason he had for giving the idea his support was, that perhaps the ladies at Rockley Lodge might be induced to attend a meet sometimes; otherwise, he confessed he thought it a waste of money.
‘Oh, you mustn’t be over-prudent, Mr. Effingham. Mr. Rockley says you Lake William people are getting alarmingly rich. You must consider the unamused poor a little, you know. It is a case of real distress, I assure you, sometimes in Yass when all you men take fits of hard work and staying at home. Now hunting is such a delightful resource in winter time.’
‘Every one in our neighbourhood has joined,’ said Wilfred, ‘but we shall want more subscriptions if we are to become a strong Hunt club.’
‘Put me down,’ said Mr. Rockley. ‘I haven’t much time, but I might take a turn some day. Hampden, the Champions, Malahyde, Compton, and Edward Bellfield are most eager. Bob Clarke wrote forwarding their subscriptions, though they live rather far off. They hope to have a run now and then for their money.’
‘I think I shall ask your father to let me work him a pair of slippers,’ said Miss Christabel, ‘or an embroidered waistcoat, if he would like it better. He deserves the thanks of every girl in the district for his delightful idea and his spirited way of carrying it out. I hope some of us won’t take to riding jealous, but I wouldn’t answer for it if ever Mrs. Snowden and I get together. I’ll tell you who could cut us both down.’
‘And who may that be?’ asked Wilfred.
‘Why, Vera Fane, of course. Didn’t you know that she rode splendidly? When she was quite a little child she used to gallop after the cattle at Black Mountain, where they live, and they say, though she is very quiet about it, that she can ride anything.’
‘What sort of a place is this Black Mountain? It hasn’t altogether a sound of luxury.’
‘Oh, it’s a terrible place, I believe, for poor Vera to have to live in always,’ said the good-natured Christabel. ‘They say it is as much as you can do to ride there, it’s so rough, and they had to pack all their stores, I believe, till the new road was made. And they’re very poor. Mr. Fane is one of those men who never make money or do anything much except read all day. If it wasn’t for Vera, who teaches her brothers (she’s the only girl), and keeps the accounts, and looks after the stores, and manages the servants, and does a good deal of the housework herself, the whole place would go to ruin.’
‘Apparently, if such a good genius was to be withdrawn; but why doesn’t her father sell out and go away? There are plenty of other stations to be got in more habitable places.’
‘Oh, his wife is buried there – no wonder she died, poor thing. He won’t hear of leaving the place; and I really believe, lonely as it is, that Vera likes it too. She is a wonderful girl, always teaching herself something, when she isn’t darning stockings, or cooking, or having a turn at the wash-tub, for Nelly Jones, who stayed with her one summer, told me that they lost their servant once, and Vera did everything for a month. Sometimes she gets out, as she did to the races last year, and she enjoys that, as you may believe.’
‘I hope she does,’ said Wilfred reflectively. ‘I thought her a very nice girl, but I had no idea she was such a paragon.’
‘She’s a grand girl, and an ornament to her sex,’ said Mr. Rockley suddenly. ‘I couldn’t have believed such a woman was possible, but I stopped there a week once, weatherbound. All the creeks were up, and as you had to cross the river about fifty times to get out of the confounded hole, I was bound to let the water go down. I should have hanged myself looking at old Fane’s melancholy phiz and listening to the rain, if it hadn’t been for Miss Fane. But I’ll tell you all about her another time. I must be off now. You’ll stay to dinner? I’ll find you here, I suppose, when I come back.’
If Howard Effingham could only have bent his mind with the same unflagging perseverance to matters of material advantage that he devoted to the establishment of the Lake William Hunt, he would have been a successful man in any country. Never would he have needed to quit his ancestral home.
In some enterprises everything appears to go contrary from the commencement. Hindrances, breakdowns, and mortifications of all kinds arise, as it were, out of the earth. On the other hand, occasionally, it appears as though ‘the stars in their courses fought for Sisera.’ The Hunt scheme had its detractors, who looked upon it as unnecessary and injurious, if, indeed, it were not also impossible. These amiable reviewers were discomfited. The sportsmen communicated with proved sympathetic. All sent a couple or two of hounds, above the average of gift animals; and one gentleman, relinquishing his position of M.F.H. in Tasmania, shipped the larger portion of his pack, firmly refusing to accept remuneration. He further stated that he should feel amply compensated by hearing of their successful incorporation in the Hunt of so well known a sporting centre as that of Lake William.
A kennel had been put up, of course, by Dick Evans. He had the dash and celerity of a ship carpenter, ensuring stability, but avoiding precision, the curse of your average mechanic. His colleague, old Tom, who grumbled at most innovations, was, wonderful to relate, in a state of enthusiasm.
Everybody in the district had a couple of hunters, it seemed, which he desired to get into condition, a task for which there had never before been sufficient inducement. Stalls and boxes were repaired, and the tourist through the famed district which lay around Lake William was enabled to report that nowhere in Australia had he seen such an array of well-bred, well-conditioned horses.
Eventually, all necessary preparations were completed. Ten or twelve couple of hounds had been got together, had been regularly exercised, and, thanks to old Tom’s efficient services as whip, persuaded to confine themselves to one kangaroo at a time, also to follow the scent in early morn with a constancy truly remarkable, considering the characters which they mostly enjoyed. So forward were all things, so smoothly had the machinery worked, that after several councils of war a day was at length fixed for the formal establishment of the ‘Lake William Hunt Club.’
Notices and invitations were sent out in all directions. Even here fortune favoured them. It so happened that Hampden and St. Maur, with the Gambiers and a few more esprits forts, had business (real, not manufactured) which compelled their presence within such distance as permitted attendance. John Hampden was supposed to ride to hounds in such fashion that he had few equals. Formerly, in Tasmania, a Master of Hounds himself, his favourite hunter, The Caliph, was even now a household word.
Such a glorious season, too! Why does not Nature more frequently accommodate us with such easy luxuries – weather wherein every one is prosperous, easy of mind, and, as a natural consequence, charitably disposed? Everybody’s stock was looking well. Prices were high and rising. There was a report gaining ground of rich lands having been discovered and settlements formed in the far south. That fact meant increased demand for stock, and so tended to make all things more serene, if possible. Nobody was afraid to leave home, no bush fires were possible at this time of year, the stock were almost capable of minding themselves, and if a man had a decent overseer, why, he might go to England without imprudence. Such was the wondrous concurrence of fortune’s favours.
The great and glorious day arrived. Following the run of luck which had marked the whole enterprise, its beauty would have rejoiced the heart of any M.F.H. in the three kingdoms.
As the party commenced to assemble on the green knoll which lay in front of the garden fence in view of the lake, all connoisseurs united in the verdict that there could not have been invented a better scenting day. There had been rain lately, and during the night anxiety had been felt lest a downpour might mar the enjoyment of the unprecedented pastime.
Too kind, however, were the elements. The hazy dawn had gradually yielded to a sunrise toned by masses of slowly moving soft grey clouds. The air, saturated with moisture, became mild and spring-like as the morning advanced. The wind changed to a few points nearer west and gradually lulled to an uncomplaining monotone. The thick, green, glistening sward, though reasonably damp, was firm and kindly in the interests of the contending coursers. It was a day of days, a day of promise, of fullest justification of existence. In such a day hope returns to each heart, strong and triumphant; care is a lulled and languid demon, and sorrow an untranslated symbol.
