Thirty Years in Australia

FIRS

weeks, during which time we made ac

h and cheery. I seldom hear it now, but when I do I am back again, in imagination, at breakfast near that open door, drinking in the sweetness of the lovely September mornings which were the morning of my life. Never had I known such air and sunshine, or such health to enjoy them; and never

ut the thieving little town-boys that live around us steal everything before it is fit to pluck. And I may here add, in regard to this sad fact, that when we came to our town-house we found a notice-board up in the orchard-paddock at the back, offering a reward of ￡5 for the apprehension of "trespassers upon these premises." While it remained up, there was always a policeman outside the fence. It was the joy of our own school-boys to bamboozle him by scaling the fence at night or in some surreptitious manner, pretending to be trespassers, and only when they had given him all the trouble and satisfaction of apprehending them, revealing their identity as sons of the house. But I could not bear this board-such an anomaly in the colony, as I had known it; I thought it horrible in any case, but on a clergyman's land quite scandalous; and I did not rest until it was taken down. Now I understand the meaning of it. No sooner was it gone than the policeman disappeared for ever. And the thieving boys took, and keep, possession of the place-at any rate, of the fruit; and of the flowers when they fancy them, as occasionally they do. The fowls are locked up in their house at night, and could defend themselves with audible squawks in day-time. The back gate is also locked. But those young villains make their own gates; they breach the defences by simply tearing down a few palings, and pass through the hole. We mend it up, or hire a man to mend it-more than the ￡5 of the reward must h

rs in use-no need for the policeman. The only raiders of

t of much of its local importance, which has only revived again in quite recent times-since the fat lands about it have become studded with dairy-farms and butter and tobacco factories, industries an

father. In the group of pleasant households his was one of the most serenely pleasant, and so we felt it deeply when one morning, a few months after our arrival, the news of his sudden death was brought to us. He had risen that morning apparently in his usual health, and was in his dressing-room, making his toilet and chatting with his wife through the open door between them-she with a baby a week or so old-when she heard him fall; he did not answer her call to know what was the matter, and when she went to see she found him dead upon the floor. Th

oth in face and figure, with the exception of her beautiful hands, she was quite plain, and absolutely without trace of conscious fascination or coquetry-the only instance I have known of a woman of that sort being irresistible to every man she came across. The story of her engagement, as told me by her husband, was exactly appropriate to them both. He was leaving England for a foreign appointment, with but a few days to spare, when a friend or relative-a high church dignitary-wrote to beg a farewell visit, mentioning by way of special inducement that a charming girl was staying in the house. The doctor responded by falling in love with her on sight, in such a desperate and successful manner that she married him within those few spare days and accompanied him to his foreign appointment. Perfect love and bliss had been their portion ever since; it was an ideal union. They had the habit of driving up to our door, just as we were finishing dinner, and calling us, one or both, to come out with them. The country was new to us all, and we spent many of the evenings of our first su

ant in a place where he may be settled for many years. The smart young bank clerks are the natural complement of the young Bush-town ladies, whose brothers always go away; the clerks will be managers in time, and meanwhile are essential to the upkeep of tennis clubs and the success of balls and picnics. In W--, in 1870-1, the bank people were of very good quality-one household in particular, the heads

needed looking after, and the wife of a chemist with whom I was in particular sympathy at the time. We sewed baby-clothes together, she and I, and the wearers of them arrived in this world within an hour of each other. My beloved first-born died at five years old; his birth-mate at about twelve, I think. The gate by which he went seemed awful enough, but the passing of the poor little girl was too dreadful for words. She was coming home from a visit one day in the charge of a friend: the creeks were flooded that they had to cross, and one

aps upon them, she got some tremendous surprises-"insolence" that simply staggered her. No, what they loved was to bring us little presents of new-laid eggs or poultry or what not, and to charge us less than they charged the laity for what they did for us in the way of business. The whole attitude of parishes and lay people in this country towards their spiritual pastors is benevolent to a degree. The parental spirit, tolerant, indulgent

nly one circumstance excepted, for which neither the country nor the parish was to blame. Pure loving-kindness and open-armed hospitality to strangers surrounded us on all sides but one, and the unexp

wn was so well filled that it was a difficult matter to find a house; we t

y, we used to find here and there in the ground small pegs which we were informed were the surveyors' marks for the li

ets and church. House, do I call it! Three tiny rooms, opening one into the other, the first into the outer air, a lean-to at the back, and a detached kitchen-that was all. We paid one pound a week for it, which certainly was an excessi

hired a sewing-woman-that, having made all my own clothes as a girl, even to the wedding-gown, I made all my children's, until the boys grew beyond their sailor suits, and the girl put her hair up. In fact, housework has all along been the business of life; novels have been squeezed into the odd times. It was many a long year before I had a dress-maker's dress, or went to such lengths of luxury and extravagance as to order carpets or curtains to be made for me. I have even manufactured sofas, with G.'s assistance, he making the very solid hardwood frames. We once had two beautiful ones, regular Chesterfield

e at the end of our meal or in the middle; I would go out with an offer of pudding or coffee sometimes, but as a rule I left everything and flew for hat and gloves. The room at the other end was our bedroom. The little cubicle between combined dressing-room and study. There was not space to s

nding the benevolence of parishioners, are as a rule struggling homes, "shabby genteel," in their appointments; and this bright, simple, tidy (though I say it that shouldn't) little toy dwelling was, to use their own word, an "oasis" amongst them. One truth t