CHAPTER X.
GEORGE COPELAND'S PROBATION.
If Jessie Lindsay had undergone a great disappointment and a great mortification she did not retire to mourn over it in secret. No excuse of headache or of other ailment was offered to prevent her taking her place at the tea-table as usual, or joining in the family conversation. Perhaps she talked a little more than her wont, for the others were rather silent, for all were sorry at George Copeland's intention of going away, and old Mr. Lindsay was somewhat offended.
"You. said you were going to write, George,' said Jessie, after the tea-things had been taken away. "Will I get you some paper and pen and ink, or have you got them? I suppose you'll write in your own room."
"No; if you've no objection I'll write here," said George. He wanted an occasional glance at Jessie to help his resolution. He sat awhile with the paper before him after she brought it, and the old home feelings and memories crowded upon him. The old-fashioned roomy farmhouse; the jolly, good-natured, but yet sometimes imperious father; the careful affectionate mother; the teazing but pleasant brothers and' sisters; the old church with the elms round it; the good-humoured rector, with his stately lady; the young curate whom all the girls worshipped; the village alehouse, where the smock-frocked peasants resorted on Sundays and holidays; the old pear-trees in the garden; the old horses in the stable; the middle-class school to which he had been sent as a boarder and where he had learned very little for the money it had cost, but where he had first entertained the notion of going to sea.
"No wonder it is hard for George Copeland to begin his letter, the first he's written since he came here," said Hugh Lindsay rather bitterly; "for he has only to acquaint his friends that he is as changeable after ten years in the colonies as he was when he went from his father's house."
But when George fairly began his letter he wrote quickly and evidently a good clear flowing hand. Jessie sat down with a book where she could not see him, but George changed his position and she would not change hers.
He had nearly finished his letter when Jessie came up to him and said her father was going to read a sermon as usual on Sunday evening; would he take his letter away and finish it, or would he stay and listen with the rest of the household? George preferred to stay.
"You had better stop and hearken," said Mr. Lindsay. "It's no mony sermons you're like to hear up the Darling, and I hope this one will do you good. Pass me my spectacles, Amy, and find me out my place. I've read the book through so often, that I'm no clear about where I left off, but you may keep mind of it better."
George had always felt something wanting in the little religious service which marked the difference between Sabbath and ilkaday in the Scottish household of Hugh Lindsay, and this evening he felt it more than ever. In such country situations as this of Branxholm there seems a want of some simple and familiar liturgy to express the thanksgivings and the supplications of the household; but the Scottish system of extempore, or a least original and unwritten, prayer, allows of no set form of worship, where there is no minister to conduct it. There is certainly latitude given to private persons, but Hugh Lindsay had no gift in prayer, being a man rather slow of speech and indisposed to make any extraordinary profession of religion. Books of family prayer no doubt abound, fitted for families in full possession of all the ordinances and inhabiting Great Britain; but for persons living in the far bush, who never hear a church bell, the omissions that ought to be made and the passages that ought to be supplied, would have required a quicker eye and a more ready tongue than Mr. Lindsay's.
So he contented himself with seeing that no unnecessary work was done on Sundays, and with reading a sermon in a somewhat broad accent to his household in the evenings. He occasionally bought a new volume, but his favourite book was a collection of sermons which had been given to him by his brother on leaving, which had been written by a minister whom he had heard often preach on sacramental occasions; for he belonged to the same presbytery as Hugh Lindsay's own minister, and was considered the most able man of them all. Fifty-two sermons a year had been read for many a year in that household, and this particular book was so familiar to Jessie and Allan that they knew the turn of every sentence in it. The sermon to Scottish minds is the most important part of the religious service at church, so that it is natural that it should be offered as a substitute for the whole at sea in a Scottish vessel or in the Bush in a Scottish family.
Copeland felt that night as if he needed prayer more than a set discourse. He was beginning a new life and he would fain have had some living devotional thoughts and feelings suggested to him. Jessie sat for a quarter of an hour after he conclusion of the sermon in silent thought, perhaps in silent prayer, and George resumed his letter and finished it. By that time the family were retiring to bed, for though Sunday was hailed as a day of rest, the limitation of employments—where there was no church to go to, no Sunday-school to teach or learn in, no neighbours to visit, and very few to see—made one and all of the household willing to abridge a little at both ends. Jessie was going with the others when George stopped her.
"I'd be glad if you would stay and see what I have been writing, Miss Lindsay, as it is according to your advice I am taking up the pen."
She accordingly stayed, and George put his letter into her hand. She was not much of a scholar; as she had said herself, she had taken care of a flock of sheep when she was eleven years old, and when she was relieved of that work there had been always a great deal of domestic and dairy work to occupy her hands and her mind; her own writing was a slow and painful process, and she could not read written hand with any degree of fluency. She had had no idea that George was such an expert penman, and blushed when she returned him his letter.
"You had better read to me what you wish me to hear," said she. "It does not seem to be my business, but as I urged you to write and as I wish that we should pa friends I'll listen to it."
George's letter was to this effect:
"My dear Father and Mother—I have been too much ashamed of my long silence and of the unsatisfactory nature of anything I ever had to say to you since I came to Australia to write till now, but you must not think that I forget you, or cease to think of you with love and self-reproach. As I am resolving to act differently for the future, I am going to try to confirm my resolution by beginning a regular correspondence.
"It is now I think eighteen months since I wrote to you from Boorundara. I have since been on the South Australian side, and have been twelve months here doing miscellaneous farm and station work, and have got such a character for being a good hand that I am begged to stay by my present master and pressed to leave by one of his neighbours, and in both instances to take a better situation than my present. I think I will stay in my present employment. for I appear to have been too fond of change. What between the sea and the diggings and the quart-crushing company and the brewery I have always had tempting offers for bettering myself, sad the consequence is that those who have stuck to the worst employment have distanced me in the race. And it is this desire for change that has made me so averse to return to you when you urged it so strongly; if I could not stay at home when I got there I should only disappoint you doubly.
"But I think I have come to a turning in my life, and that I may yet become worthy of your affection. Something has come my path just at this time in the shape of a good woman, and whether I my ever see my way to marry her or not, whether I may ever grow deserve her or not, I shall always feel indebted to her for the advice she has given and the resolution she has inspired. If I am ever a comfort or a pride to you in my life, it will be greatly owing to her.
"I have a year's wages almost untouched and mean to keep it sacred, and when I have saved of my own earnings as much as will take me home and bring me back again, if I cannot settle in England, I may go to see you, but I will not take your money for such a purpose, however willingly and anxiously you may offer it; and I think that after these years of knocking about I am better cut out for life in a new country than in the old. Write to me all of you; I do not say write kindly, for you have always written so kindly that it cuts me to the heart. I'd rather have a box on the ear any day than such expressions of affection when I feel I do not deserve them; but write all about yourselves. I want to know everything that goes on at home, and what Tom and Charlie, and Lizzie and Jane are about. Tell me if here is any change in the house, if the old mossy apple trees are still bearing, if the elms where we used to go afar the rooks have been cut down, as was threatened to make nests for older friends still Tell me how the old squire keeps his health, and if he ever goes to Millmount to praise mother's poultry-yard and dairy now-a-days, and if Mr. Anthony has left Cambridge and come to Stanmore to live.
"I saw the Darlington crest the other day, where I had no idea of expecting to see it, and it brought old times to my mind. I would like to know how the young squire is thought of in the county and by the tenantry, and if his grandfather has better reason to be proud of him than mine had of a runagate like me. Ten years away from home, and no further on in the world, seems a very poor accost to give of myself, but ten years hence—I have some hopes now.
"With kindest love to all my brothers and sisters, believe me always your affectionate and dutiful son,
"You see what you have done, Jessie," said George. "May I apologise to your father for my shabby treatment of him, and beg to be allowed to go to Gundabook?"
"As you please," said Jessie, and she thought for awhile. "I have been wondering what made me so deceived about your heart. That unsettledness, you say, is natural to you, so I had no right to judge by that; but I see it is because you have been amongst gentlefolk like Amy that your ways are different from those of any man we ever had about the place—gentler, kinder, and more polite. I thought it was because you liked me, that you were so mindful, and the way you used to circumvent my father to let Allan have some quiet time for his books was what he'll never forget, nor me either. But it is what you would have done in any house and for any master, for it was a pleasure to you, and you had the wit as well as the will to do it."
"I have been brought up as differently from Miss Staunton as you have been," said George. "Father is only a tenant-farmer of old Mr. Derrick, a jolly, beer-drinking farmer, who rides a good horse, keeps a good table, pays his rent, growls at the game laws, and laughs at the doctor. He has had more schooling than your worthy father, but is not so long-headed or so prudent. I never 'saw such natural business talents as your father has 'except perhaps Allan's. No; I would not have done as much for any other master, though I confess I might have done as much for any other woman as for you, because I was blind and did not see how much better you were than any I had seen in my wandering life. I am not really far ahead of you in my bringing up, though desperately behind you in purse. But, Jessie, for all that I am going to try to deserve you, and when you have made a man of me I'll see how my better self feels towards you and then how your good father feels towards me."
"He takes your leaving him very much to heart," said Jessie. "I never saw him so much put out with anything."
"Well, if he'll forgive me I'll work at book as I never worked before; and if all Mr. Lindsay says is true, it is likely to be a first-rate speculation."
"My father's speculations are almost always successful, but I have gone against this one, for there is such a thing as having one's head too full of business! but if you are willing to take the charge it will be a relief to us all, for Allan would be sorely missed at Branxholm."
"And will you not miss me?" said George, who felt desirous to awaken again the tenderness she had acknowledged to.
"I think you have said all that is necessary, so I will wish you good-night," said Jessie. "You'll put out the lamp before you go."
"Good-night, Miss Lindsay," said George, not even venturing to take the hand, far less to touch the cheek of the girl whom he determined should be his wife. While she wondered over the events of the day with thoughts rather bitter than sweet, for the recollection of George's blank face and hesitating disavowal of any reciprocal affection overpowered all the kindlier speeches and more hopeful suggestions of the second interview, he resolved to try as much as he could to attach himself to her. His vague wishes took the form of a definite plan; he was going to offer to manage the station at Gundabook on shares, if Mr. Lindsay would agree to it, or for wages, if he would not. In the former alternative he would be able to prove that he could be his own master; and if he did well for a year he would speak to Mr. Lindsay, and if he then could trust him with Jessie they might be married. By that time he believed he would be as fond of Jessie as she herself could wish.
Hugh Lindsay was satisfied with George's handsome apology, and more than satisfied with it. If he had had any difference with any one he was always very strongly convinced that he was in the right, only it was seldom the other party had the grace to own it. It was scarcely in human nature at least it was not in Hugh Lindsay's nature to help chuckling over Mr. Hammond's disappointment when his arrangement with Copeland fell through; so when George proposed to take the station on shares he agreed to it readily, and offered more liberal terms than Copeland thought he deserved.
"Writing to your friends and listening to that capital sermon of Mr. McCroskey's has done you good, George, and brought you to reason; and now I'll hear the end of the good wife's lamentations about Gundabook. Clever woman as she is and sensible in most things, Mrs. Lindsay hasn't the enterprising spirit that a man needs to get on in the world. It will no be very solitary for you, for there's Dugald McLachlan and his wife for company. So let us see about drafting the sheep, and you may have what horse you like; I'll no be beat by Mr. Hammond; ye'll get as good a beast to carry you from Branxholm as from Aralewin."
All these matters being settled, George Copeland went to his new duties in a very few days. Jessie missed him, but then everybody in the house, even the phlegmatic old Highland shepherd, regretted Chorche, as he called him, and half wished that he had gone to Gundbook instead of Dugald McLachlan. The new man who was engaged to fill Copeland's place was not to be compared to him in any way, and Jessie liked to hear the disparaging parallel drawn. It showed that she had had some excuse for her regard for him, and that she was only reasonably affected by his absence.
Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, who had reckoned with certainty on engaging Copeland after what had been said, were naturally disappointed and annoyed when he changed his mind, and the lady thought it was just that vulgar family's luck, and another instance of the unscrupulousness of the lower orders in this country with regard to breaking engagements.
Mr. Hammond could not say there had been any regular engagement, but certainly there was an understanding.
"But, mamma," said Louis, "why did not you take Amy Staunton home when her father was killed? Surely there should have been an understanding that it was your business."
Mrs. Hammond winced—she could bear reflections from her husband and her neighbours, but that her son should think her in the wrong was worse than anything else.
"Oh! the Lindsays took a great fancy to her, and she to them; it is much better as it is."
"But she is not like the Lindsays; you never saw such a girl, she is so pretty and so lady-like. I am certain from something she said that she has great connections. And to think of her being governess there; but of course she'll marry Allan or James, or one of the Lindsays," and Lois sighed. Louis was nearly eighteen, and his mother congratulated herself that in six months he would be in England.
"Copeland says that his father was a tenant of old Mr. Derrick's that I have surely heard you speak of," said Louis.
"Oh! is he?" said Mrs. Hammond. "Mr. Derrick is a very wealthy man; at least he used to be when I visited the family; he had a beautiful estate in ———shire."
"He made money cotton-spinning," said Louis, turning up his nose, with a squatter's pride, at such base mechanical ways of getting money. Strange that cotton-growing and wool-growing should be the aristocratic employments in America and Australia, while the conversion of these raw materials into useful articles, though requiring more intelligence and more capital, is never considered at all aristocratic in England or elsewhere.
"Copeland must be of a better class than his employers if his father was one of Mr. Derrick's tenants," said Mr. Hammond.
"No doubt he is. I liked his appearance and manner very much when we accompanied him to Mr. Lindsay's on that unfortunate evening, and that makes it more provoking that we should lose him after what he said to Louis. But these low people can always outbid us; they can afford to pay more wages than we can, for they do so much of their own work."
"I wish you would let me do some of your work instead of keeping me grinding away at these lessons," said Louis. "I'm sure I have no objection to go up the Darling, or if you would only let me take care of the home station when you are away I show you how I'd manage."
"I daresay you would," said Mr. Hammond. "I'm sure if your mother was not so set on your education being properly completed I should be only too glad to leave you some charge here; for I can trust you, my boy, and you really have a talent for country life and stock."
"Mr. Lufton could advise me a little, and I could always get a hint from Allan Lindsay," said Louis, eagerly. "Do, mamma, le me stay?"
"It is absolutely impossible that I should consent to such an arrangement," said Mrs. Hammond. "When I go to England I take with me all that is dear to me in South Australia."
"I begin to hate the name of England," said Louis.
"And so do I," said Fred.
This sentiment was echoed by all the young people who were seated at table.
"Poor ignorant children," said Mrs. Hammond; "you little know what you despise."
It was not altogether smooth work for George Copeland in this attempt a settling down and trying to make and to save money in this out-station of Gundabook. The restlessness and roving habits of ten years' growth were not to be calmed down all at once. It was not nearly so pretty a country as that surrounding Branxholm; and George was always susceptible to beauties of scenery. It was flat, and here were no trees; the sheep fed chiefly off scrub and saltbush. There was very hard work for him and Dugald sinking wells, and yard after yard of solid rock to drive through before there was a drop of water to be go. I was a dry season, and if they failed to get water the run must be abandoned and the sheep driven back home station, for the surface water had absolutely failed as it had never done during the two years in which Mr. Lufton had occupied it, and by which Mr. Lindsay had been led to buy it. But George had worked heroically and Dugald steadily, and in the very nick of time water was found. The want of companionship weighed on George's spirits; the only other residents on the station were the old Highlander and his wife, who spoke as little English as one could believe possible after seven years of colonial life. The old woman certainly could not speak more than twenty-five words, while Dugald himself had been driven by necessity into the knowledge of about a hundred; but it is very difficult to hold connected conversation with so limited a vocabulary, even if George and his assistant had had many ideas in common. If Allan had gone George knew that he would have stayed through everything, but then Allan knew a little Gaelic, and George despised the guttural high-pitched scolding language too much to learn it, and would have been laughed at if he had attempted it. Besides, Allan could make a companion of a book at any time, and George liked human voices and human faces. He had not known how much he had grown attached to the family of Lindsays—how much his meals had been sweetened by their company till now, when Mrs. McLachlan was the only substitute for Mrs. Lindsay and Jessie and Amy and the girls, and Dugald's ignorance for Mrs. Lindsay's shrewd common sense and Allan's fine intelligence. It was a pity that Jessie was no correspondent; he longed for a letter from her or a sight of her. But first came the well-sinking, that could not be left; then the daily drawing of water which was too much to leave for Dugald; then Mr. Lindsay had suggested that some fencing should be done, and his suggestions had the force of commands with George. Even the roughest bush-fence, if round a large area, takes a long time; then came on shearing time, and the year of probation had expired before George could spare time to go to Branxholm.
Allan had written to him now and then with his father's wishes and orders, and everybody desired to be kindly remembered to him. Amy Staunton sometimes had a message—indeed Allan was fond of bringing her name into his letters at all times; but there was no special mention of Jessie or any message or letter from her though George had written to her twice.
Had he not been rash and foolish in thus in a measure binding himself without any particular affection for her; nothing stronger than esteem and a wish to feel love? Was she not forgetting him in his absence?
It was when he was puzzling himself vainly over this matter that he received a letter from both of his parents that did him good, and inspired him with fresh courage. The joy that his mother expressed on hearing that he had been brought under the influence of a good woman reminded him of what Jessie had said and how she had looked on that memorable Sunday; and the hope she entertained that one day he might bring his wife home where she would be received as a daughter, helped George to weather that long year at Gundabook. And when he took a retrospective view of what had been done for the station during the year he felt that Hugh Lindsay had cause to be satisfied with the place, and George Copeland to be satisfied with himself.
There had been some changes at Branxholm during his absence. Amy Staunton had sprung up into an elegant girl of fifteen Isabel Lindsay, a year older and a head taller and very much larger in the frame, had nearly given up lessons, and was beginning to be of some use in the house. Phemie was still learning something from her young governess, and Allan did not see any prospect of ever completing his education; everything he learned only showed him how much more there was to be known.
The Hammonds had gone to England with no intention of returning, leaving their home station under the care of a Scotchman named McCallum, and this overseer, was a more frequent visitor at Branxholm than any neighbour the Lindsays ever had. As George travelled towards the station, feeling more of the old home longing than he had done since he had left England, he heard from an acquaintance that Mr. McCallum was looking after Jessie Lindsay, and that her father was greatly pleased to see it. "She's the best of the whole lot of Lindsays," said his informant; "and McCallum knows what he is about when he makes up to her."
How grave Jessie looked when George met her eyes; they were not what a casual observer would call fine eyes, though they were well shaped and of a very clear blue colour, for they were neither flashing nor sparkling nor melting; but they had a steady light in them that one could depend on, and if they were well looked into they repaid the trouble. She looked older than when George had parted from her—no unpleasantly older—there were no lines on her cheek or brow or round the corners of her mouth, but her face looked calm and more thoughtful, and her movements were a little more deliberate.
George could get no opportunity of speaking to her for hours. Allan and his father were full of questions as to how matters were going on at Gundabook; Isabel laid hold of him to see her new pony; Jamie wanted to see if he could come up to George with the rifle after a year's hard practice, and kept him an hour before he was satisfied that George was still greatly his superior; but Jessie was shy and silent, and would give him no chance to speak to her. A chance observation of Isabel's about McCallum's visits called up the colour to her cheek, but George thought it was indignation and not consciousness—he had seen both, and fancied he knew the difference.
"I suppose you are not going to milk this afternoon;' said he; "I would go and bail up the cows for you if you were—I wonder if the poor beasts will know me again."
"I'll milk if you would like it," sad Jessie in a low voice, "and Biddy (for Judy is married and gone from Branxholm) will see to the things in the house and get the tea with some looking after from Isabel."
"The cows have not forgotten me," sad George, as he bailed up the very strawberry cow whose leg he had released from the rope a year ago before Jessie had changed his life for him. "And I want to know whether you have forgotten me, or what passed between us here."
"I have forgotten none of it. There are few things that I forget. It humbles me much to recollect all that passed here. I think you might have spared me that pain, but I deserved it," said Jessie.
"Jessie," said he, "I did not mean you to take it like this. I only thought that if you would call to mind how you felt then, and would only feel to me in the same way now, I would be happy—happier than I ever thought to be in my life, for now I do really love you. I'd be glad, very glad to be your husband, if you can love me well enough to be your wife. I think I can be trusted to be steady now, and with God's blessing, I'll do my very best to make you happy."
Jessie's large frame shook with the emotion which George's words and looks called forth. "My heart is yours now as it was then; at least I know of no change, except that I know you have proved yourself more worthy of what I feel for you."
"Then why did you not write when I wrote to you? It cast me down to get no answer."
"I could not trust myself to write. I had done too much in speaking, and I could not make out by your letters exactly what you meant, so I was amid I could not tell you just what I meant by mine. Besides I was ashamed of my writing, though it is better now, thanks to Amy. But I was ashamed whenever I thought of my mistake and your surprise; and besides I wanted you to right yourself because you felt you ought to do it, and not for my sake, for that would show you deserved my love. It is only when a man is unworthy that love can be a misery. Even if you had not told me that you feel that love, for me that makes me so happy I can scarce see you through my tears, I would never have mourned if you had proved yourself good and I had won you to your father and mother. Now you'll have to speak to my father, and I doubt you will have some rouble here, for he is set on my marrying McCallum, and to me he is he most wearisome company I ever was in. So that I'll never do, George; whatever my father may wish or may command I can obey him so far as to give you up, but not to marry another man."
"You'll not give me up, Jessie," said George earnestly, for he now felt as much like a lover as a girl could wish.
"Well, I think not," said Jessie. "Marriage is a thing that so much concerns the two persons that enter into it that I scarce see what even parents have to do with it, except in advising or delaying or such like. But I must mind Strawberry; she's surprised at being bailed up and not milked."
"I'm willing enough to wait till I have got further forward to satisfy your father. I think my own father would help me a bit if he knew what a good sensible girl I have won in the wilds of Australia. Perhaps if I show my letters and tell him my father's circumstances Mr. Lindsay would be more favourable."
"If you win Allan's good will you may make pretty sure of my father's, and I don't think Allan is so much taken up with this overseer of Mr. Hammond's as the rest of them are."
"And to win Allan you should have Miss Staunton for your friend. That is a match coming on in time as sure as fate."
"I think it very likely," said Jessie. "It will be a great pleasure to me and to all of us, for she is the winsomest little creature that ever crept into a household, and the cleverest. She has been very serviceable to me in many ways. I never cared to learn much before, because I did not wish to raise myself above you, but when I found that you were so far ahead of me in schooling and the like, I have worked, and Amy says that I am the most patient of the lot of them, though Allan's more persevering. I see the end of my learning, but he does not."
"Will you write to my mother, Jessie?" said George eagerly; "it would gladden her heart to get a letter from you."
"If you wish it very much, George, I will," said Jessie. "Did you get any news about the young Squire Derrick that Amy wanted to hear about?"
"He was not at Stanmore when my mother wrote last. The old gentleman is failing fast and he had gone to the south of England for a change, and Mr. Anthony and Miss Derrick and young Miss Edith were with him. Father says he is well enough spoken of—that is to say he hears no ill of him—and that is more than can be said of half the heirs to large estates in England."