The Author's Daughter/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
A WEDDING AT BRANXHOLM.
George's eyes were full of suppressed fun and triumph when Mr. McCallum met him at the door as he carried in the milk-pails for Jessie. He knew by intuition who the visitor was.
"Well, Miss Lindsay," said the tall raw-boned Scotchman, extending his hand to her, "I hope ye're nae waur." This was his customary salutation to young ladies, combining, as he thought, a little facetiousness with the simple wish for health.
"I'm very well, I thank you," said she, "but I must put past the milk before I go ben the house. You'll find my father there, and he'll be glad to see you."
"Aye, aye, careful and managing as ever. The milk maun be looked to first. I wish my old woman at Aralewin had half your skill. But whose this swankie. that's so helpful ?"
"It's George Copeland, that's come from my father's station at Gundabook. He was at Branxholm for twelvemonths before he went up the country, but that is before you came to these parts."
"Oh! it's George Copeland, is it I've heard Mr. Hammond speak of him;' said McCallum, looking at the middle-sized, well-made Englishman, with his quick eye and his thick curly dark brown hair, not altogether with bene- volence. "And how are things looking at Gundabook ?"
"Somewhat better since I went up," said George.
"It's a poor place," said McCallum. "I wonder at Mr. Lindsay having anything to do wih it. In a dry season like this what can you do for water ?"
"We've sunk for it and got it." "Is it good water, though, when you have got it ?" said McCallum.
"Yes, very good water."
"You never get the wool there off the sheep that you can hereabouts, not the half of the quantity, and the quality is very indifferent," urged the overseer. "Mr. Lindsay is satisfied, however," said George, "and you can judge for yourself. I have brought the wool down to-day, and it looks very respectable."
"I know the place well by Mr. Lufton's description. He would not have parted with it if it had been worth keeping."
"It did not suit him to keep it, but it suited Mr. Lindsay to buy," said George. "I'll not say that it is a garden of Eden, but an industrious man can make a living on it."
Although George had succeeded in gaining the ear of the daughter, he felt eclipsed in the eyes of the old people by this rather dictatorial Scotchman, who "cracked of horses, craps, and kye," and sheep too, to the goodman, and spoke to Mrs. Lindsay of his aged mother in Scotland, of whom he had been for many years the stay and the pride—a fact of which he was rather boastful.
Now and then a speech was addressed to Jessie herself, which was meant to be insinuating, but which Jessie only laughed at and turned off. George had wished to go over the accounts of the station (which he had kept as methodically as he could) with Mr. Lindsay and Allan; but McCallum wished to audit the accounts, and to assist the Lindsays with his superior knowledge and experience; and though Mr. Lindsay would not have minded, for he wanted to prove that his speculation had been a good one, George and disliked showing their affairs to a third party. Everything that George said he had done McCallum suggested might have been done differently or done better, and instanced many cases in which other people had made blunders which he had pointed out to them, and that all his own plans and methods had been invariably crowned with success.
"Are ye no thinking of ploughing, George, now that you have done sic a bit o' fencing?" said Mrs. Lindsay.
"No; the fencing is only to keep the sheep in and save a man's wages; but it would be a great pleasure to me to see a bit of land fit to plough. I'd very soon have some wheat in; but the land is poor, and there's too little rain."
"No; the good man says hat though it may carry sheep well enough, it is no sic a bonnie bit as Branxholm, where we have sic a garden for vegetables and fruits o' every kind under heaven, I think. Did ye notice the orange-trees, how they've grown since ye gaed awa, George? I'm sure it often goes to my heart to see the peaches and the plums and the pears going to waste, for we've far mair than sic a family can destroy [consume], and you would be glad of our leavings at Gundabook if we could send hem. But that's impossible, though we can send you the flour, for Allan has had a braw crop this year off the old bit. We're feeding the sheep off the stubble," said Mrs. Lindsay.
"I don't think it pays mixing up wheat with sheep," said McCallum. "I never saw it done in the North, and it has never been attempted at Mr. Hammond's station neither. It's no the way of doing that has been followed by the men that has made their fortunes in his colony."
"Weel, it may no answer for them that's got all their labour to hire," said Mrs. Lindsay, "but Allan is a famous hand at the plough, and Jamie is coming on to be serviceable too, and it's a great saving to hae nae flour to buy, but rather wheat to sell; and then there's green wheat for the ewes and the young lambs, and hay for the beasts in the summer."
"What would they say in Scotland to feeding lambs with young wheat, or cutting down a crop of growing corn for hay?" said McCallum.
"Every land has its ain lauch," said Mrs. Lindsay; "we wouldna maybe cut down corn for hay if we could grow as much rye-grass and clover, or have such crops of turnips for feeding, as they have in the old country. But it's boughten land that Allan ploughs, and I think the wheat-field makes the place heartsome."
"I'm sure my eyes were glad to see the green corn as I came near the place. I think Branxholm has more of an English look than any station I ever saw, either on this side or in Victoria, and I've seen some hundreds," said George. "I had rather be a farmer than a shepherd any day."
"So should I," said Allan. "I am glad I was not sent to Gundabook."
"And yet you know well that farmers are the most grumbling, discontented set of folk on the face of the earth," said McCallum. "God Almighty can never send weather to please them, and it's no in the power of man to satisfy them with the prices."
"And are the sheep and cattle farmers aye satisfied?" said Mrs. Lindsay.
"They make much more money," said McCallum.
"They whiles lose it too," said Mrs. Lindsay. "I'm no saying anything against the sheep, for no doot the goodman has done weel wi' them; but I ken less aboot them than the farm. But it has aye seemed to me that there is great waistrie at they big stations, sic waistrie as we hae nane o' here, except in the matter o' the fruit, and that the pigs get. Talk o' lambs feeding on green wheat, they'd open their eyes in Teviotdale to hear o' feeding pigs on peaches and apricots. But what wi' the sheep and the bit farm and the dairy, there's full work for all of us the whole year round, and a full house and abundance, and something put into the stocking every year from all hands. And as for Allan's wheat and Jessie's butter and cheese, they'd tak the prize at the Show if it was na owre muckle fash to send them sae far."
"There's nae doot o' Jessie's skill and her eydant hand. I heard a' aboot what she could do lang or I came to this district," said McCallum, who talked his broadest Scotch to Mrs. Lindsay by way of making himself agreeable.
"And who told you that?" said the mother, who was fond of Jessie, and eager to know who had spread her fame.
"Deed it was a shepherd on Blackwood station, where I came from last, that had been awhile at Branxholm, Bill Rooney by name, that told me about Jessie's cleverness."
"He had very little to do," said Jessie, nettled at the familiar use of her Christian name. "He was the idlest man we ever had in the house; if he had minded his own business better it would have been better for him."
"Maybe so, but folk canna a' mind their ain business when they once get alongside of you, Jessie; but that minds me it's getting late and I must be jogging. Will ye see to my beast, George, and bring him round?" George was rising with no very good grace, when Allan offered to do it; and in a few minutes McCallum took leave of the family.
"A very douce man he is, and a good neighbour; he must be a great comfort to his old mother, poor body. It's a great odds to us having him at Aralewin, from thae upsetting Hammonds," said Mrs. Lindsay.
"He is rather upsetting himself, mother," said Jessie; "so ready with his advice, as if we didn't know how to manage our own affairs, and after all the years that my father has been in the colony too."
"He has great skill in sheep-managing on large stations, no doubt; but I never had any opinion of that new fangled way of dressing that he recommends. Our own fashion has served our turn, though he makes light of it," said Mr. Lindsay.
"He's a regular sawny," said Isabel. "I wonder, Jessie, that you can put up with a slow Scotchman like that."
"Who says I can put up with him?" said Jessie, impatiently.
"What for do you say that o' the Scotch, Isabel?" said her mother.
"It's no that he's a Scotchman, only but because he is a slow, solemn Scotchman, that seems to take his words out and look at them awhile before he says them, that I can' be bothered with him," said Isabel. "I begin to yawn when I see him coming over the hill, and I never stop till he goes away."
"There's nothing like the Scotch for sense," said Mrs. Lindsay, gravely.
"Oh! Scotchmen stand so much on their sense," said Jessie, impatiently.
"Weel, lassie, and it's a very guid thing to stand by; not but what I daresay your father kens his ain business as well as maist folk, and though it might be weel meant, it was scarce necessar to be advising him."
"I am thinking," said Allan, "that Amy and George are wondering where is the great difference between us. English people cannot distinguish between North Country and South Country, and East Country and West Country accent, and lump us all together, and I suppose they look on us all as slow, solemn Scotch people."
"No, indeed; there is a great difference between Scotchmen and Scotchmen," said Amy.
"Who would compare such a man as McCallum with Allan?" said George.
"Who, indeed?" echoed Amy.
"Oh! my Allan's no that far behind McCallum, though he is young yet," said Mrs. Lindsay.
"Behind him!" said George, "he's ahead of McCallum, any way you reckon the two men; but now that Isabel's slow Scotchman has gone, and she has waked up, I fear she will become sleepy again, for we have nothing lively to amuse her with. We have these accounts to look over, and I should like it done to-night."
Everything was satisfactory, and more than satisfactory, to Mr. Lindsay; George had done more for the station than had been expected; but when he explained what was his great object in sticking to Gundabook, and said that he had won Jessie's consent to marry him, the old man was disappointed. He had wished his children to do better, and McCallum, who had a handsome salary and good perquisites from a wealthy absentee proprietor, and who had, besides, saved money, was, in all worldly points of view, a much better match than George. He liked the young Englishman, and Allan liked him still more than his father did; but the idea of an attachment between him and Jessie had never entered either of their heads.
A little impatient exclamation at his presumption was the first reception of his proposal by Mr. Lindsay, and then an enquiry as to how he expected to keep a wife whom he wanted to take from a home of comfort and plenty. George replied that he hoped to take her to Gundabook, and they would work up together, as her father and mother had done before them. He asked for no money with his wife, but he earnestly desired the consent of Jessie's parents. He had no doubt that he would make his way with her by his side, for the thought of her had helped him well through the year.
"And you have done well. I'm no denying that you have done very well, my lad; but I'm thinking that the notion of what you might get with Jessie has been an object; but I'm no going to disinherit myself for my bairns to take up with any man that comes about the place. It is a bad example. Isabel, that sneers at a good, sensible man like McCallum, will be taking up with Harry Weir that came in your place, if her sister Jessie, that we expected better sense from, cannot look higher than the like of you."
"I don't think there's much to be apprehended from Harry Weir, father;' said Allan; "a shambling awkward fellow, no more like George than a cart-horse is like a racer. But you must hear what Jessie herself says. People cannot always be equal in means when God has fitted them otherwise for each other."
Although Hugh Lindsay was vexed and annoyed at the affair, he was a just and upright man; and when Jessie told him how strong her attachment was, and that she never could marry the man of her father's choice, or anybody but George, he felt that she must not be thwarted. Old memories of a courtship among the braes of bonnie Teviotdale, where there was far less chance of worldly prosperity for the pair of lovers than now opened for George and Jessie, came over him. Jessie had never looked so like her mother as when she declared the state of her heart. George's account of the circumstances of his family in England carried some weight. A Scotchman always appreciates the fact of having come of respectable people, and the letters George showed bore strong evidence of that.
So that when Hugh Lindsay broke the news to his wife he was disposed to soften matters, and to be a little impatient with her for making the very objections he had offered, and which had been overruled.
The parents loved and respected their daughter, and gave in to her wishes handsomely, so that within three months after hey had been consulted there was a merry wedding at Branxholm. During the interval George had worked very hard to make the house better and more comfortable, and when Jessie took possession of it she was surprised at his ingenuity. She had determined to work for her husband even more than for her father; but she found that there was not so much to do, for she had no dairy, and the household was very small.
She found George a most thoughtful and affectionate husband, who appreciated the happy home she made for him as none but a wanderer could do, and who never by word or look ever hinted to anybody that his wife had taken the initiative; even when Hugh Lindsay had spoken of his presumption he had not defended himself by pleading her declaration.
On the day that Allan Lindsay had completed his twenty-first year, which happened while George was serving his year's probation, his father spoke to him about family matters, and told him how much he felt beholden to him for all he had done, both with hands and with head for the general prosperity. He proposed that Allan should now take a definite position, and have a share in the home station, and in the farm of which he had been such a successful manager. Although Allan had appeared quite con,cured to work a home for his father, he old man wished to deal fairly by him, and to allow him to have a share of he profits of he increasing property a his own disposal He had never seen any good come in he long run from_ keeping young men in he position of children, however useful they might be; and he knew that Allan would meet with many temptations to leave him both by being offered wages, and by the prospect of more adventure and change. Allan was greatly pleased with the handsome way in which his father put the new arrangement.
"And here's another I wanted speak to you about, Allan, and hat is about Amy. You well know hat she is like a daughter in the house, and that whatever she want she may have it, just like Jessie or Isabel or Phemie; but she does not just belong to us, and I'm thinking that when she grows older and bigger she'll want to go to push her own fortune, which by all accounts she's well fitted to do. McCallum was saying that the governess at Mr. Braddin's station where he was at the North was not fit to hold he candle to Amy for the Scotch tunes and the Irish tunes she plays; and in other things, too, she's had a by ordinary education, as no doubt her father was the man to give it. Your mother has said, and I mean to stand to it, that she should have share and share alike with your sisters; but yet I fancy she would feel more independent, and there would be less chance of her being wiled away from Branxholm if she had a regular sum by the year for her services. It's a great saving to me to be able to keep Isabel and Phemie at home, and I think the house is blither with them too; so if you and Amy could settle what it was fair for such a young thing as her to get, I would like it better than the way things are going on now."
"I think that of all the family I am most indebted to Amy," said Allan.
"That's true, and I keep that in mind too; but now you are working on your own account you may be able to pay her back somehow or other. You're both young, but wait a hit; and in the meantime you'll speak to Amy and tell her what I mean."
"It is just like your honest straightforward self that you'll take no advantage of my work, nor of that of the stranger who was thrown upon your charity," said Allan.
Amy was astonished to hear that Mr. Lindsay thought her services worth money; but when the point was insisted on, she, with Allan's help,fixed a very moderate sum as sufficient remuneration, and she felt rather important at the idea of her own livelihood at fifteen. She had sometimes difficulty in maintaining discipline with the tall girls who were her ostensible pupils; but Allan and Jessie supported her well and they learned more than the younger ones. Jessie had had a new light thrown on the subject, and worked with a steadiness that surprised Amy for all the year that George Copeland was absent. Indeed up to a certain point her success was greater than Allan's; her work was less faulty, though less brilliant and less ambitious. It certainly satisfied George Copeland, and the letters she wrote to his father and mother first on the engagement between them being ratified by her parents' consent, and afterwards at Gundabook, were so well written and so admirably expressed, that no one could have supposed that they came from a girl whose childhood and youth had been spent in the far bush, and her whole life in constant unintellectual labour. George's mother got her letters by heart; she wrote the most affectionate answers to the beloved daughter-in-law, who had won back her son to hope and self-respect, and every month both Mr. and Mrs. Copeland urged more strongly the propriety of George's return to help his father with the farm, for neither of his brothers had ever liked it, and indeed neither of them could get on with their father. Charles Copeland had gone into business as a seed merchant in a neighbouring town, and had married a rather showy young woman, who, however, had no money. Tom had married better with regard to means; but his wife was sickly and a great care to him, and he was settled at a great distance as a jeweller in a large manufacturing town. It had cost a lot of money to set up both sons in business; indeed George had cost them less than any son they had. The three daughters were all married; the Copelands were (apparently) a marrying family. They had hoped that the eldest daughter might have remained with them, for she was the last to go off; but her fate came upon her in the shape of a fair-spoken commercial traveller, a friend of Tom's, whom he had introduced to his parents to lead to this sad result. So that the old people who had brought up six children saw themselves deserted now in their failing years, and they turned longingly towards their eldest son and the unknown daughter-in-law, of whom they had a strong conviction that she would prove the best of all those introduced by marriage into the family. They recollected that George, though he had his faults, had the best temper of the three lads; and now that Mr. Copeland was getting past his best, an active son, who had learned wisdom from experience, would be invaluable at Millmount.
While the husband and wife were debating as to what answer should be given to the last urgent appeal, they had visitors—expected and welcome visitors—at Gundabook.
It was leisure time at Branxholm, and Allan had offered to take Isabel and Amy for a long ride and a fortnight's visit to George and Jessie, for Amy was now a good and fearless rider, and Isabel had ridden on every sort of animal and in any sort of fashion from the time she was six years old The very first money Allan Lindsay had that he could call his own he had devoted to the purchase of the handsomest side-saddle, riding-habit, and hat that could be got in South Australia as a present to Amy. She had accompanied Jessie and Mrs. Lindsay to Adelaide when they were buying Jessie's wedding clothes, and What to Mrs. Lindsay was of more consequence than the clothes, the providing, which it behoves every bride to take home with her to her husband's house. The worthy old lady had not been in Adelaide for ten years back, and nothing of less consequence could have made her take the fatigue of the journey. But she did not think Jessie was a judge of house linen, or napery (as she called it), and Mrs. Robert Lindsay was an Englishwoman, and could not be expected to know anything of what was needed, so that department of the business she must see to herself. And certainly she did it very thoroughly, only she bought twice as much as Jessie thought she needed. "Things are made so much fiimsier nowa-days," Mrs. Lindsay would say, giving the linen an impatient tweak, "so ye behove to have the larger stock in the house."
Amy went in partly to give Jessie the advantage of her taste in choosing, and partly to gether riding habit properly. fitted on. It was handsomer than Isabel's or Phemie's; but the girls were not jealous of her superior equipment; they were very fond of her, and besides, whatever Allan did he had a good right to do, and after all the pains she had taken with him, it was a pleasure to him to give her something. She looked better in the riding habit and on horseback than in any other dress or in any other circumstances. She was still slight and probably would always be so, but her figure was finely proportioned, and her. slenderness did not betoken any delicacy of constitution. Her eyes did not appear so large now that her cheeks had rounded out and looked rosy. She did not take on the large broad freckles so common with fair-complexioned people in so hot a climate, but she had a little of the natural browning which a healthy girl cannot escape who lives much in the open air in Australia, and a curious eye might perceive a few dark small freckles across her nose and the upper region of her cheeks. But she was beyond question the beauty of the district, and if it had not been a thing generally understood that she was to be married to Allan Lindsay when she was old enough, she would have had a great deal of admiration in spite of her youth. Even with that understanding there were more than one or two callers who made a convenience of Branxholm hospitality in order to have a look at the handsome English girl, half daughter and half governess, Whose father's death had left her no better friend than old Hughie Lindsay, as old colonists still called him, in spite of his years and his means. Mrs. Hammond's conduct had been more than a nine days' wonder in a thinly-peopled district Where wonders were scarce; her name or Amy Staunton's name could never be mentioned without a reflection on her stinginess and her pride.
Mrs. Lindsay had been half amused and half sorry to see how Louis Hammond parted from Amy. "Only calf love," she observed to her husband, "but the laddie feels it mair than his mother would just like." Louis kept up a regular correspondence with Mr. Lufton, ostensibly about horses and kindred topics, but he always made particular enquiries as to the family at Branxholm, and especially about Amy Staunton; and Mr. Lufton, who felt a little tender in that quarter himself, had no objection to give any reasonable amount of information. Louis had felt too jealous of Allan Lindsay to ask him to correspond with him, but he considered Mr. Lufton an old fogey who had been refused by ever so many young ladies to Louis's certain knowledge, and therefore could be no dangerous rival. Louis was determined to return to the colony as soon as his want of success had convinced his father and mother that he was fit for nothing else, and the recollection of Amy Staunton was interwoven with all the memories of the sunny South Land which he loved and regretted so much.