The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn Part 47

"Involved grammar," said the Captain to himself, but, added aloud: "A Churchman of your position, sir, will do me an honour by using my house; but the Mr. Maberly of whom I have so often heard from my friend Buckley will do me a still higher honour if he will allow me to enrol him among the number of my friends."

Frank the Dean thought that Captain Brentwood's speech would have made a good piece to turn into Greek prose, in the style of Demosthenes; but he didn't say so. He looked at the Captain's stolid face for a moment, and said, as Sam thought, a little abruptly:

"I think, sir, that you and I shall get on very well together when we understand one another."

The Captain made no reply in articulate speech, but laughed internally, till his sides shook, and held out his hand. The Dean laughed too, as he took it, and said:

"I met a young lady at the Bishop's the other day, a Miss Brentwood."

"My daughter, sir," said the Captain.

"So I guessed--partly from the name, and partly from a certain look about the eyes, rather unmistakeable. Allow me to say, sir, that I never remember to have seen such remarkable beauty in my life."

They sat Frank down to supper, and when he had done, the conversation was resumed.

"By-the-bye, Major Buckley," said he, "I miss an old friend, who I heard was living with you; a very dear old friend,--where is Doctor Mulhaus?"

"Dear Doctor," said Mrs. Buckley; "this is his home indeed, but he is away at present on an expedition with two old Devon friends, Hamlyn and Stockbridge."

"Oh!" said Frank, "I have heard of those men; they came out here the year before the Vicar died. I never knew either of them, but I well remember how kindly Stockbridge used to be spoken of by everyone in Drumston. I must make his acquaintance."

"You will make the acquaintance of one of the finest fellows in the world, Dean," said the Major; "I know no worthier man than Stockbridge.

I wish Mary Thornton had married him."

"And I hear," said Frank, "that the pretty Mary is your next door neighbour, in partners.h.i.+p with that excellent giant Troubridge. I must go and see them to-morrow. I will produce one of those great roaring laughs of his, by reminding him of our first introduction at the Palace, through a rat."

"I am sorry to say," said the Major, "that Tom is away at Port Phillip, with cattle."

"Port Phillip, again," said Frank; "I have heard of nothing else throughout my journey. I am getting bored with it. Will you tell me what you know about it for certain?"

"Well," said the Major, "it lies about 250 miles south of this, though we cannot get at it without crossing the mountains, in consequence of some terribly dense scrub on some low ranges close to it, which they call, I believe, the Dandenong. It appears, however, when you are there, that there is a great harbour, about forty miles long, surrounded with splendid pastures, which stretch west further than any man has been yet. Take it all in all, I should say it was the best watered, and most available piece of country yet discovered in New Holland."

"Any good rivers?" asked the Dean.

"Plenty of small ones, only one of any size, apparently, which seems to rise somewhere in this direction, and goes in at the head of the bay.

They tried years ago to form a settlement on this bay, but Collins, the man entrusted with it, could find no fresh water, which seems strange, as there is, according to all accounts, a fine full-flowing river running by the town."

"They have formed a town there, then?" said the Dean.

"There are a few wooden houses gone up by the river side. I believe they are going to make a town there, and call it Melbourne; we may live to see it a thriving place."

The Major has lived to see his words fulfilled--fulfilled in such marvellous sort, that bald bare statistics read like the wildest romance. At the time he spoke, twenty-two years ago from this present year 1858, the Yarra rolled its clear waters to the sea through the unbroken solitude of a primeval forest, as yet unseen by the eye of a white man. Now there stands there a n.o.ble city, with crowded wharves, containing with its suburbs not less than 120,000 inhabitants. A thousand vessels have lain at one time side by side, off the mouth of that little river, and through the low sandy heads that close the great port towards the sea, thirteen millions sterling of exports is carried away each year by the finest s.h.i.+ps in the world. Here, too, are waterworks constructed at fabulous expense, a service of steam-s.h.i.+ps, between this and the other great cities of Australia, vieing in speed and accommodation with the coasting steamers of Great Britain; n.o.ble churches, handsome theatres. In short, a great city, which, in its amazing rapidity of growth, utterly surpa.s.ses all human experience.

I never stood in Venice contemplating the decay of the grand palaces of her old merchant princes, whose time has gone by for ever. I never watched the slow downfal of a great commercial city; but I have seen what to him who thinks aright is an equally grand subject of contemplation--the rapid rise of one. I have seen what but a small moiety of the world, even in these days, has seen, and what, save in this generation, has never been seen before, and will, I think, never be seen again. I have seen Melbourne. Five years in succession did I visit that city, and watch each year how it spread and grew until it was beyond recognition. Every year the press became denser, and the roar of the congregated thousands grew louder, till at last the scream of the flying engine rose above the hubbub of the streets, and two thousand miles of electric wire began to move the clicking needles with ceaseless intelligence.

Unromantic enough, but beyond all conception wonderful. I stood at the east end of Bourke Street, not a year ago, looking at the black swarming ma.s.ses, which thronged the broad thoroughfare below. All the town lay at my feet, and the sun was going down beyond the distant mountains; I had just crossed from the front of the new Houses of Legislature, and had nearly been run over by a great omnibus. Partly to recover my breath, and partly, being not used to large cities, to enjoy the really fine scene before me, I stood at the corner of the street in contemplative mood. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked round,--it was Major Buckley.

"This is a wonderful sight, Hamlyn," said he.

"When you think of it," I said, "really think of it, you know, how wonderful it is!"

"Brentwood," said the Major, "has calculated by his mathematics that the progress of the species is forty-seven, decimal eight, more rapid than it was thirty-five years ago."

"So I should be prepared to believe," I said; "where will it all end?

Will it be a grand universal republic, think you, in which war is unknown, and universal prosperity has banished crime? I may be too sanguine, but such a state of things is possible. This is a sight which makes a man look far into the future."

"Prosperity," said the Major, "has not done much towards abolis.h.i.+ng crime in this town, at all events; and it would not take much to send all this back into its primeval state."

"How so, Major?" said I; "I see here the cradle of a new and mighty empire."

"Two rattling good thumps of an earthquake," said the Major, "would pitch Melbourne into the middle of Port Phillip, and bury all the gold far beyond the reach even of the Ballarat deep-sinkers. Come down and dine with me at the club."

Chapter XXVI

WHITE HEATHENS

Captain Brentwood went back to Garoopna next morning; but Frank Maberly kept to his resolution of going over to see Mary; and, soon after breakfast, they were all equipped ready to accompany him, standing in front of the door, waiting for the horses. Frank was remarking how handsome Mrs. Buckley looked in her hat and habit, when she turned and said to him,--

"My dear Dean, I suppose you never jump over five-barred gates now-a-days? Do you remember how you used to come over the white gate at the Vicarage? I suppose you are getting too dignified for any such thing?"

There was a three-railed fence dividing the lower end of the yard from the paddock. He rammed his hat on tight, and took it flying, with his black coattails fluttering like wings; and, coming back laughing, said,--

"There's a bit of the old Adam for you, Mrs. Buckley! Be careful how you defy me again."

The sun was bright overhead, and the land in its full winter verdure, as they rode along the banks of the creek that led to Toonarbin. Frank Maberly was as humorous as ever, and many a merry laugh went ringing through the woodland solitudes, sending the watchman c.o.c.katoo screaming aloft to alarm the flock, or startling the brilliant thick-cl.u.s.tered lories (richest coloured of all parrots in the world), as they hung chattering on some silver-leaved acacia, bending with their weight the fragile boughs down towards the clear still water, lighting up the dark pool with strange, bright reflections of crimson and blue; startling, too, the feeding doe-kangaroo, who skipped slowly away, followed by her young one--so slowly that the watching travellers expected her to stop each moment, and could scarcely believe she was in full flight till she topped a low ridge and disappeared.

"That is a strange sight to a European, Mrs. Buckley," said Frank; "a real wild animal. It seems so strange to me, now, to think that I could go and shoot that beast, and account to no man for it. That is, you know, supposing I had a gun, and powder and shot, and, also, that the kangaroo would be fool enough to wait till I was near enough; which, you see, is presupposing a great deal. Are they easily approached?"

"Easily enough, on horseback," said Sam, "but very difficult to come near on foot, which is also the case with all wild animals and birds worth shooting in this country. A footman, you see, they all mistake for their hereditary enemy, the blackfellow; but, as yet, they have not come to distinguish a man on horseback from a four-footed beast. And, this seems to show that animals have their traditions like men."

"Pray, Sam, are not these pretty beasts, these kangaroos, becoming extinct?"

"On sheep-runs, very nearly so. Sheep drive them off directly; but on cattle-runs, so far from becoming extinct, they are becoming so numerous as to be a nuisance; consuming a most valuable quant.i.ty of gra.s.s."

"How can you account for that?"

"Very easily," said Sam; "their enemies are all removed. The settlers have poisoned, in well-settled districts, the native dogs and eagle-hawks, which formerly kept down their numbers. The blacks prefer the beef of the settlers to bad and hard-earned kangaroo venison; and, lastly, the settlers never go after them, but leave them to their own inventions. So that the kangaroo has better times of it than ever."

"That is rather contrary to what one has heard, though," said Frank.

"But Sam is right, Dean," said the Major. "People judge from seeing none of them on the plains, from which they have been driven by the sheep; but there are as many in the forest as ever."

"The Emu, now," said Frank, "are they getting scarce?"

"They will soon be among the things of the past," said the Major; "and I am sorry for it, for they are a beautiful and harmless bird."