Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

more than a fortnight, Charles resolved to take that line homeward; and though there was no time to write to communicate this arrangement, Charles felt sure, from the tone of Lady Anne's recent letters, that a meeting in Madeira would not, in her judgment, be open to any objection.

It was on the morning of All Saints' Day that Greville found. himself in the roadstead at Funchal, and he was not slow to discover lying off the Loo Fort the familiar figure-head of his old friend the "Moonbeam.' From a Portuguese huckster of fruit and flowers, who had boarded the steamer, he learned that the English Milord' and family, who had arrived in the Moonbeam,' were living at the Quinta da Fonte, about half a mile out of the town of Funchal. To land and stow his baggage at the hotel was not a long business; what should be his next move required more deliberation. To march straight to the Quinta da Fonte was his first impulse, but on reflection a sudden appearance there seemed rather undesirable, especially as no one there, except Lady Anne, knew his secret. A preliminary note to that wise lady seemed the most prudent course. In this note, which he despatched at once by the Portuguese porter who had brought his baggage from the vessel, Charles simply announced his arrival, and requested some detailed information on the present health of Gertrude, and advice as to his own further movements. Having sent off this note, and feeling too restless to settle down to the business letters he had to write both to New Zealand and to England, Charles strolled out to beguile the time till some answer should arrive from Lady Anne.

As he was passing by the marine villa which was some years ago occupied by the Empress of Austria, and was gazing alternately on the blue sea and the green sugar-canes which clothed, instead of vines, the slopes of the hills, he stumbled suddenly on St. John and Augustus.

Charles had grown an enormous beard in New Zealand, and that small portion of his face which was still visible was so bronzed with sun and sea-breezes, that his two friends, who supposed him to be wool-gathering at the Antipodes, actually passed him without recognition.

'Halt!' shouted Charles; is that the way you treat your old friend?'

6

It may well be imagined that for the next quarter of an hour Charles had no chance of putting in another word. What with St. John's vocal mitrailleuse and the simultaneous volleys from Augustus, and the interjectional fire of fresh queries before answer knew what question would,' Charles had not even a chance of beginning his history since he drove from the Grange in Augustus's dog-cart, nearly three years ago.

'But of course you're coming to our quarters? Where are your traps? Let's go for them at once,' suddenly cried Augustus.

Charles, to whom this proposal afforded the first opportunity for a

single word which might draw forth any information about Gertrude, deprecated the hospitable offer, on the ground that any noise might be bad for their invalid.'

'Noise! Invalid! I should like to know who can make half the noise that I and St. John do every day of our lives; and as for our invalid, I suppose you mean Gatty. Why, she's no more an invalid than you are. That double-tongued, double-named old muff of a doctor in England frightened us all out of our wits about her two years ago, and bowled us off to this miserable island just as the hunting season was beginning; and my father, who hates doctors, you know, vowed that after going to what they called the "first opinion of the day," he wouldn't send for any more of them, and ever since has done just what this old humbug advised. But the doctor here, who's got more sense in his little toe than all the Todds and Parkers together in their brains, says it's all my eye, and that Gatty's all right if they'll only let her alone, and let what he calls "Nature take its course;" though I don't know what the dickens he means by such a nonsensical expression.'

At this point of the conversation they happened to have nearly reached Charles's quarters, and finding it quite impossible to persuade him to come to the Quinta, Augustus declared that he should go at once with St. John to Sir Henry, and see if his father could not overcome Charles's 'stupid obstinacy,' and order him up bag and baggage to the Quinta da Fonte.

Charles was not sorry for the moment to have got rid of his friends, for he had no wish to have Lady Anne's letter delivered to him at the hotel in their presence. On entering the hotel, he found the anxiously desired despatch waiting for him. Though it did not quite coincide with the rose-tinted report of Augustus, Lady Anne's bulletin was certainly encouraging. After a very hearty expression of pleasure at hearing of Charles's arrival, which fact she had already communicated to the individual chiefly interested, she gave him the substance of the opinion of the Madeira physician who had attended her, and under whose treatment the soft air of the island had contributed so much to Gertrude's restoration. Without venturing to impugn the accuracy of Sir Todd Parker's diagnosis, Dr. Lund had hinted that the very brief visit of ten minutes to the Grange, when Sir Todd had first visited his patient, could scarcely have enabled him to examine the condition of the lungs sufficiently; that he (Dr. Lund) could detect no cavity, but was inclined to ascribe the symptoms of physical weakness rather to depression of spirits than to organic disease. Dr. Lund did not think another visit to Madeira would be necessary, but that no doubt a warm and dry climate, such as that of Australia or New Zealand, would be more calculated than that of England to ensure complete restoration.

Lady Anne's letter concluded with an assurance that as soon as the Berkeleys knew of Greville's arrival in Madeira they were sure to press his immediate adjournment to the Quinta da Fonte. It

contained a postscript (in which it has been observed that ladies generally put the most important items of their letters), with the information that tidings had reached them by yesterday's mail of the death of Mr. Richardson, and that Sir Henry had undertaken in consequence to act as her guardian during the brief remaining period of her minority. Charles had scarcely finished the perusal of this interesting document when Sir Henry, accompanied by Augustus, was announced. The unceremonious alacrity with which Augustus bundled off Charles's baggage to the Quinta da Fonte; the wellaffected reluctance with which Charles himself deprecated an intrusion on his part into a house in which every additional guest might 'increase trouble and disturb the quiet which probably might be still thought necessary for Miss Berkeley;' the courteous but curt condemnation by Sir Henry of Charles's scruples as humbug,' will scarcely require describing or even telling to those who are acquainted with the manners or customs of the Grange. Suffice it to say that in less than half an hour the whole party were (Charles included) gazing on a glorious sunset from the verandah of the Quinta da Fonte. And as their sayings and doings there form no part of the annals of Blues and Buffs, we must leave them unrecorded, and our readers must draw on their imagination for the events of the next ten years.

CHAPTER XXXII..

In the valley of the Rangitata, about fifty miles from the Arkwrights' run at Dovedale, stands among evergreens, gum-trees and totaras and at no great distance from the clear waters of the river, a gabled house, which, though smaller in its dimensions, &c., is not unlike, in its architectural features, to one of the familiar homes of England. It is called "The Grange. There is a little church hard by built by the owner of the mansion. In the church are several tablets to the memory of departed friends in England. A small brass cross is let into the chancel wall, sacred to the memory of Sir Henry Berkeley. In a forest half a mile off, in the centre of a cluster of log huts calling itself a village, there is a small school built of wooden slabs, and roofed with shingles. In the school there is an harmonium. Little Gertie is beginning to help her mother in carrying hymn-books to the school, and little Charlie, who is two years younger, is beginning to tease his sister for her goodness and obedience. In all these little childish struggles Gertie is supported against her little tyrant of a brother by their father, who has now become the Hon. Charles Greville, having been appointed by the Governor a Member of the Legislative Council. Though neither a Blue nor a Buff, he is still the same Charles Greville as of old. Surrounded by the unpoetical influences of a material prosperity which sometimes is unchastened and uncorrected in a new country by the checks and trials which are almost ever present in old England, all Charles Greville's influence is devoted to elevate the land of his adoption.

6

The last month's mail had brought tidings of the death of Sir Todd Parker and of the enormous fortune he had left behind him. Augustus having inherited his paternal acres, had settled down into a respectable county gentleman, was always vowing that he would go out to New Zealand and see old Charles;' but as St. John had sold his yacht, and the hunting season and his fishing trip to Norway divided the year pretty well between them, poor Gus had, as he said, really no time to spare.' The dear old friend of the family, the good genius who had watched over the destinies of Charles and Gertrude from their first betrothal under the tall-spreading ferns in the princely conservatory at Castle Booby, feeling that she had now watched over as many births, deaths, and marriages' as ought to fall under the supervision of any one being, however angelic, in one country, transported herself in the evening of her days to the banks of the Rangitata; and when Gertrude had any doubts or domestic problems on the education of her children, or wished for support against any too independent assertion of authority on the part of her husband, she never laid down the law without a concluding appeal to the still supreme authority at the Antipodean Grange,' with the gentle interrogation, 'Don't you think so, Lady Anne?'

6

[ocr errors]

Lord Henry Primrose's term of office as Governor of the Colony has expired. Though repeatedly pressed by his Excellency to come to the rescue as one of his responsible advisers,' Charles has always steadily declined to take any active part in colonial politics. The Jobsons and the Browns are still intriguing against each other, though by an amicable compromise all parties in the Legislature have pocketed both their salaries and their travelling expenses; and with regard to the latter item the more favoured friends of the colonial treasurer sometimes find on their return from their Parliamentary labours that they have, like Joseph's brethren, their money in their sacks.'

[ocr errors]

It is perhaps fortunate for Charles Greville that his political wild oats were sown in the barren soil of Shamboro,' and that he has no temptation to grow another crop in New Zealand. To more restless spirits, full-welling fountain heads of change.' To backwoodsmen and pioneers of political enterprise the task of reproducing, even in a caricatured form, a counterpart of our home institutions in the outlying provinces of our empire may have its attractions-to Greville it has none. His quiet home on the Rangitata has more charms for him than the bustling Council chamber at Wellington, and the rippling of the waters of the river and the prattling of his children bring more music to his ears than all the phone or antiphone of 'Blues and Buffs.'

THE END.

[ocr errors]

6

THE AUSTRIAN POWER.

6

some of the many speeches which went before the late general election, words like these were often heard, Austrian nationality,' 'Austrian national feeling,'' Austrian national interests,' 'Austrian national honour,' Austrian national independence.' The exact words do not greatly matter; the point is that the word 'Austria and some of the derivatives of the word 'nation' were coupled together in a way which implied that the ideas expressed by the word 'Austria' and the word 'nation,' had something in common. That any one of decent information should speak in this way, especially that any one in the position of a statesman should speak in this way, suggests some curious subjects for thought. Such language might of course be used with the direct purpose of misleading those who heard it. It might be used out of simple ignorance of the plainest facts on the part of the speaker. But let us, as is becoming, put both these suppositions aside. There remains a remarkable instance of that process of confusion of thought which does quite as much as either sheer ignorance or direct deception to lead men into mistakes, both of reasoning and of practice. Forms of words with which we are familiar in cases to which they thoroughly apply are, not so much carelessly as in a certain way mechanically, transferred to other cases to which they do not apply. Men are thereby led to think, to speak, and to act, as if they did apply to those cases; and not only endless mistakes in thought and expression, but much practical evil follows. Of course everyone who insists on accuracy of thought and expression must expect to be met with the charge of pedantry. But the charge of pedantry commonly means that he who brings it is angry with him against whom it is brought for knowing something which he is in his heart ashamed of himself for not knowing. Certain it is that a little more pedantry, that is, a little more care to make words answer to thoughts and thoughts answer to facts, would have saved not a little mischief during the last five years. Not a little practical evil has come of the mere use of misleading phrases like Turkey,' 'Turkish government—sometimes even Turkish Christians and the like. Such phrases disguise the real facts of the case, and thereby help to hinder such practical action as the facts of the case call for. People come to think that the names Turkey' and the Turks' express things which answer to one another as 'England' and 'the English,' 'France' and 'the French' answer to one another. They do not see that the Turks are to Turkey,' not what the English have been to England in any age, but rather what the English were to Ireland in the last age. They come to think the 'government' of Turkey' is something which answers to the government of England or France..

[ocr errors]

6

« AnteriorContinuar »