Part 43 (1/2)
”G.o.d bless all here!” he cried heartily.
”What,” exclaimed the Squire, jumping up and holding out his hand, ”my dear old friend Venturesome Vesey!”
”Yes, Yankee Charlie, and right glad I am to see you.”
”My wife and children, Vesey. Though you and I have often met in town since my marriage, you've never seen them before. My brother, whom you know.”
Vesey was not long in making himself one of the family circle, and he gave his promise to stay at Burley Old Farm for a week at least.
Rupert and Elsie took to him at once. How could they help it? a sailor and gentleman, and a man of the world to boot. Besides, coming directly from Archie.
”I just popped into the house the very morning after he had written the letter I now hand to you,” said Captain Vesey. ”He had an idea it would be safer for me to bring it. Well, here it is; and I'm going straight away out to the garden to smoke a pipe under the moon while you read it.
Friend as I am of Archie's, you must have the letter all to yourselves;” and away went Vesey.
”Send for old Kate and Branson,” cried the Squire, and they accordingly marched in all expectancy.
Then the father unfolded the letter with as much reverence almost as if it had been _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_.
Every eye was fixed upon him as he slowly read it. Even Bounder, the great Newfoundland, knew something unusual was up, and sat by Elsie all the time.
Archie's Letter Home.
”My dearest Mother,--It is to you I write first, because I know that a proposal I have to make will 'take you aback,' as my friend Winslow would say. I may as well tell you what it is at once, because, if I don't, your beloved impatience will cause you to skip all the other parts of the letter till you come to it. Now then, my own old mummy, wipe your spectacles all ready, catch hold of the arm of your chair firmly, and tell Elsie to 'stand by'--another expression of Winslow's--the smelling-salts bottle. Are you all ready? Heave oh!
then. I'm going to ask you to let Rupert and Elsie come out to me here.
”Have you fainted, mummy? Not a bit of it; you're my own brave mother! And don't you see that this will be only the beginning of the end? And a bright, happy end, mother, I'm looking forward to its being. It will be the reunion of us all once more; and if we do not live quite under one roof, as in the dear old days at Burley Old Farm, we will live in happy juxtaposition.
”'What!' you cry, 'deprive me of my children?' It is for your children's good, mummy. Take Rupert first. He is not strong now, but he is young. If he comes at once to this glorious land of ours, on which I am quite enthusiastic, he will get as hardy as a New Hollander in six months' time. Wouldn't you like to see him with roses on his face, mother, and a brow as brown as a postage stamp? Send him out.
Would you like him to have a frame of iron, with muscles as tough as a mainstay? Send him out. Would you like him to be as full of health as an egg is full of meat? and so happy that he would have to get up at nights to sing? Then send him here.
”Take poor me next. You've no notion how homesick I am; I'm dying to see some of you. I am making money fast, and I love my dear, free, jolly life; but for all that, there are times that I would give up everything I possess--health, and hopes of wealth--for sake of one glance at your dear faces, and one run round Burley Old Farm with father.”
This part of Archie's letter told home. There were tears in Mrs Broadbent's motherly eyes; and old Kate was heard to murmur, ”Dear, bonnie laddie!” and put her ap.r.o.n to her face.
”Then,” the letter continued, ”there is Elsie. It would do her good to come too, because--bless the la.s.sie!--she takes her happiness at second-hand; and knowing that she was a comfort to us boys, and made everything cheery and nice, would cause her to be as jolly as the summer's day is long or a gum tree high. Then, mother, we three should work together with only one intent--that of getting you and father both out, and old Kate and Branson too.
”As for you, dad, I know you will do what is right; and see how good it would be for us all to let Roup and Elsie come. Then you must remember that when we got things a bit straighter, we would expect you and mother to follow. You, dear dad, would have full scope here for your inventive genius, and improvements that are thrown away in England could be turned to profit out here.
”We would not go like a bull at a gate at anything, father; but what we do want here is machinery, easily worked, for cutting up and dealing with wood; for cutting up ground, and for destroying tree stumps; and last, but not least, we want wells, and a complete system of irrigation for some lands, that shall make us independent to a great extent of the spa.r.s.ely-failing rains of some seasons. Of course you could tell us something about sheep disease and cattle plague, and I'm not sure you couldn't help us to turn the wild horses to account, with which some parts of the interior swarm.”
Squire Broadbent paused here to exclaim, as he slapped his thigh with his open palm:
”By Saint Andrews, brother, Archie is a chip of the old block! He's a true Broadbent, I can tell you. He appreciates the brains of his father too. Heads are what are wanted out there; genius to set the mill a-going. As for this country--pah! it's played out. Yes, my children, you shall go, and your father will follow.”
”My dear Elsie and Rupert,” the letter went on, ”how I should love to have you both out here. I have not asked you before, because I wanted to have everything in a thriving condition first; but now that everything is so, it wants but you two to help me on, and in a year or two--Hurrah! for dad and the mum!
”Yes, Elsie, your house is all prepared. I said nothing about this before. I've been, like the duck-bill, working silently out of sight--out of your sight I mean. But there it is, the finest house in all the district, a perfect mansion; walls as thick as Burley Old Tower--that's for coolness in summer. Lined inside with cedar--that's for cosiness in winter. Big hall in it, and all the rooms just _facsimile_ of our own house at home, or as near to them as the climate will admit.
”But mind you, Elsie, I'm not going to have you banished to the Bush wilds altogether. No, la.s.sie, no; we will have a mansion--a real mansion--in Sydney or Brisbane as well, and the house at Burley New Farm will be our country residence.