Part 43 (1/2)

He madly sought oblivion, which could not be accorded him.

Chapter XVI.

The Wanderer.

”Then I consider'd life in all its forms, Of vegetables first, next zoophytes, The tribe that dwells upon the confine strange 'Twixt plants and fish; some are there from their mouth Spit out their progeny, and some that breed, By suckers from their base or tubercles, Sea-hedgehog, madrepore, sea-ruff, or pad, Fungus, or sponge, or that gelatinous fish, That taken from its element at once Stinks, melts, and dies a fluid; so from these, Through many a tribe of less equivocal life, Dividual or insect, up I ranged, From sentient to percipient, small advance, Next to intelligent, to rational next, So to half spiritual human kind, And what is more, is more than man may know.

Last came the troublesome question--What am I?”

”And vain were the hat, the staff, and stole, And all outward signs were a snare, Unless the pilgrim's endanger'd soul Were inwardly clothed with prayer.

”But the pilgrim prays--and then trials are light-- For prayer to him on his way, Resembles the pillar of fire by night, And the guiding cloud by day.

”And salvation's helm the pilgrim wears, Or vain were all other dress; And the s.h.i.+eld of faith the pilgrim bears, With the breastplate of righteousness.

”At length his tears all wiped away; He enters the City of Light; And how gladly he changes his gown of grey, For Zion's robe of white.”

It was on the 22nd of October, 1836, that an emissary from his sister, sought Sir Henry Delme. It was at the antipodes to his ancestral home; in Australia, that wonderful country, which--belied and calumniated, as she has. .h.i.therto been--presents some anomalous and creditable features.

For her population, she is the wealthiest, the most enterprising, the most orderly and loyal, of our British possessions. There, is the aristocracy of wealth, to an unprecedented degree, subservient to the aristocracy of virtue. While she is stigmatised as the cloacae of Britain, the philosopher looks into the future, and already beholds a nation, perpetuating the language of the brave and free; when the parent stock has perhaps ceased to be an empire; or is lingering on, like modern Greece, in the hopeless languor of decay and decrepitude.

This agent had arrived from England, a very short period before; and, accredited with a packet, containing various communications from Emily and Clarendon, accompanied by the miniatures of their children, with little silky curls attached to each, proceeded an expectant guest, to Sir Henry Delme's temporary residence. Early dawn saw him pacing the deck of a steam vessel; and regarding with great surprise, the opposite banks of Hunter's River, up which the vessel was gliding.

A rich dark soil, of great depth, bespoke uncommon fertility; while the varieties of the gum tree--then quite new to him--with their bark of every diversity of colour, gave a primeval grandeur to the scene.

Each moment brought in sight the location of some enterprising settler, which, ever varying in appearance, in importance, and in extent yet told the same tale of difficulties overcome, and success ensuing.

On his reaching the towns.h.i.+p, near the head of the navigation, this agent found horses waiting for him:--he was addressed by a well-appointed groom--our old friend Thompson--who touched his hat respectfully, and mentioned the name, he was already prepared for by his Sydney advices.

Suffice it, that Sir Henry was no longer the Baronet, and that the name of Delme was a strange one in his household.

Their route skirted the banks of one of those rivers, which, diverging from that mine of wealth, the Hunter, wind into the bowels of the land, like a vein of gold.

That emissary will not soon forget his lovely ride. His eye, wearied with gazing on the wide expanse of ocean, feasted on the rich and novel landscape. They rode alternately, through cleared lands, studded with rich farms, waving with luxuriant crops of wheat and rye; and again, through regions, where the axe had never resounded, but where eucalypti, and b.a.s.t.a.r.d box, and forest oak with its rough acorn, towered above beauteous wild flowers, whose forms and varieties were a.s.sociated in the mind of the stranger, with some of the most precious and valued flowers which adorn British conservatories.

The russet Certhia, with outspread fluttering wing, pecked at the smooth bark, and preying on some destructive insect, really preserved what it seemed to injure. The larger parrots, travelling in pairs, screamed their pa.s.sing salutation, as they displayed their bright plumage to the sun; while hundreds, of a smaller kind, with crimson shoulder, were concealed amid the green leaves; and, as they rode beneath them, babbled--like frolicsome children of the forest--a rude, but to themselves a not unmeaning dialogue.

The superb warblers, ornaments alike to the bush or the garden, flitted cheerily from bough to bough. Strangely mated are they! The male, in suit of black velvet, trimmed with sky blue, looks like a knight, attired for a palace festival:--while his lady-love--she resembles some peasant girl, silent and grateful, clothed in modest kirtle of sober brown.

As he reined in his horse, to examine these at leisure, how melodiously came on his ear, the clear, ceaseless, silver tinkle of the bell-bird; this sound ever and anon chequered by the bold chock-ee-chock! of the bald-headed friar. They had proceeded very leisurely, and the sun was already declining, when Thompson, pointing to an abrupt path, motioned him to descend, and at the same time, gave the peculiar cry, known in the colony as the coo; a cry which was as promptly answered. It was not until he was close to the edge of the river, that the stranger understood its purport.

A punt was rapidly approaching from the opposite bank. An athletic aboriginal native, in an att.i.tude that seemed studiedly graceful, was bending to the stout rope, which, attached to either side of the river, served to propel the punt. He had been spearing fish; for his wife, or gin, or queen--for she was born such, and contradicted in her person the old adage,

”There's a difference between A beggar and a queen”--

was drawing the barb of a spear from the bleeding side of a struggling mullet. She sat at the bottom of the boat, with a blanket closely wound round her. She was young, and her looks were not unpleasing. Her thickly-matted hair was ornamented with kangaroo teeth; and to her shoulder, closely clung a native tailless bear, whose appearance could not do otherwise than excite a smile. With convex staring eyes--hairless nose--and white ruff of fur round his face--he very closely resembled in physiognomy, some grey-whiskered guzzling citizen. The well-trained horses gave no trouble, as they entered the punt; and the smiling boatman, displaying his teeth to Thompson, but without speaking, commenced warping the punt to the opposite side of the river. They were half way across, ere the guest observed the mansion of the friend he sought. It stood on the summit of the hill, on the left; beneath which the river made a very abrupt bend. The house itself resembled the common weather-boarded cottage of the early settler,--wide verandah was over the front entrance,--and two small rooms, the exact width of this, jutted out on either side of it.