WHAT CHRISTMAS IS AFTER A LONG ABSENCE.

Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 152, 24 December 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHAT CHRISTMAS IS AFTER A LONG ABSENCE.

Sixteon years have past since, a turbulent, discontented boy, I left England for Australia. My first serious study of geography began when I twirled about a great globe j to find South Australia, Avliich Avas then tho fashionable colony. My guardians — I was an orphan — were delighted to get rid of so troublesome ¦a personage ; so, very soon, I was tlio proud possessor of a town and "omintry lot of land in the model colony of South Australia. My voyage in a capital ship, with tho best fare every day, and no one to say, " Charles, you have had enough wine," was pleasant enough : very different from the case of some of my emigrating companions — fathers and mothers with families, who had left good homes, good incomes, snug estates, and respectableprofessions, excited by speeches at public meetings, or by glowing pamphlets, descriptive of the charms of a colonial lif o in a model colony. I learned to smoke, drink grog, and hit a bottle swung from the yardarm with pistol or rifle. Wo had seA'eral very agreeable scamps on board ; ex-cornots and lieutenants/ ex-government clerks, spoiled barristers and surgeons, plucked Oxonians — empty, good-looking, woU-dressod fellows, who had smoked meerschaums, druuk champagne, hock, and burgundy, fought uuels, ridden steeplechases, and contracted debts in every capital in Europe. These distinguished gentlemen kindly took me under their patronage, smoked my cigars, allowed me to stand treat for champagne, taught me, at some slight expense, the arts of short whist, icarti, and unlimited 100 ; and to treat with becoming hauteur any advances on. the part of tho intermediate passengers. By the end of the ono hundred days of our voyage, I was remarkably altered, but Avhether improved, may be a question ; as tho leading principles I had imbibed Avore to the effect that work of any kind was iow, and that debts were gentlemanly. My preconceived notions of a model colony, with all the elements of civilisation, as promised in London, were rather upset by observing, on landing, just within tho Avash of high Avater, on the sandy beach, heaps of f urniture, a grand piano or two, and chests of drawers in great numbers ; and I especially remember a huge iron-banded oak plate chest, halffull of sand, and empty. The cause of this wholesale abandonment was soon made plain to me, in the shape of a charge of £10 for conveying my trunks in a bulllock waggon, of ¦which they formed less than half the load, seven miles from the port to the City of Adelaide ; — the said city,which looked so grand in water colours in the Emigration Rooms in London, being at that time a picturesque and uncomfortable collection of tents, mud huts, and Avooden cottages, curiously warped, rather larger than a Newfoundland dog's kennel, but letting for tho rent of a mansion in any agricultural county of England. It is not my intention, now, to tell the tale of the fall of the Model Colony and colonists of South Australia, and the rise of the copper mines, which I did not stay to see. When a general smash was taking place on all sides, I accepted the offer of a rough diamond of an ovorlander, •who had come across from the old colony with a lot of cattle and horses to sell to the Adelaideans. Ho had taken a fancy to me in consequence of the skill I had displayed in bleeding a valuable colt at a critical moment ; ono of the f oav \isof id things I had learned in England; and, when my dashing companions Avere drinking themselves into delirium tremens, enlisting in the police, accepting situations as shepherds, sponging for dinners on the oncedespised "mobs," and imploring the captains of ships to let them Avork their way home before tho mast, he offered to take me Avith him to his station in the interior, and "make a man of me." I turned my back on South Australia, and abandoned my country lot, on an inaccessible hill, to nature, and sold my town lot for £b. I began to perceive* that work was the only means of getting on in a colony. • Accordingly, into the far bush I went, and on the plains of a nowsettled district — all solitary ; constantly in danger from savage blacks; constantly occupied in looking aftor tho wild shepherds and stockmen (herdsmen) of my ovorland friend ; passing days on horseback at one period ; at another, compelled to give my whole attention to the details of great establishment — I rubbed off old skin. xly fashionable affectations died away ; my life became a reality, dependent on my own exertions. It was then that my heart began to change ; it was then that I began to think tenderly of the brothers and sisters I had loft behind, and Avith whom I had communicated so little in tho days of my selfishness. Rarely oftener than twice a year could I find means to forward letters ; but the pen, once so hateful to me, became now, in hours of leisure, my great resource. Often and often haA r o I sat in my hut at midnight filling pages with my thoughts, my feelings, my regrets. The?nro burning bofore my hut, where my men •wero sleeping, reminded mo that I was not alono in the great pastoral desert, Avhich, sloping away from my station, rolled for hundreds of miles. Every sound was redolent of the romance of tho strange land to which I had transplanted myself. Tho hoArl of the dingo prowling round my sheep-fqlds ; the defying bark of my watclif id dogs ; tho cry of tho strange night-birds ; and sometimes, echoing from tho vvYy ranges, the wild mountainous song of the fierce aborigines, as they danced their corrobberies, and acted. dramas representing the slaughter of tho white man and .the plunder of his cattle. When such noises met my ear, I looked up to the rack where my arms lay, ready loaded, and out to where a faithful sentinel, the rebel o'Donohue, or the poacher, Giles Brown, with musket on shoulder, paced up and doAvn, ready to die, but not to surrender. In this great desert tho petty cares, mean tricks of laud jobbing, all the little contrivances for keeping up appearances no longer need«d, wero forgotten. My feAv

books wore not merely read ; they were learned by heart. If in the morning I tired horses in galloping my rounds, and settled strife among my men with rude words, and even blows ; in the evening, sitting apart, I was lost in the wanderings of Abraham, the trials of Job, or the Psalms of David. I followed St. John into tho wilderness, not unlike that bofore my eyes, and listened far from cities to the Sermon on tho mount. At other times, as I paced along the open forests, I made the woods resound with the speeches of Homer'sheroes, or the outbursts of Shakespeare's characters — outbursts that came home to mo : for, in those lone regions, I was chief, wftrrior, and almost priest : for, when there was a doath, I read tho funeral service. And thus I educated myself. While thus recalling friends neglected, and opportunities misused, and pleasant scenes of Eastern County life, I most loved to dwell upon the Christmas time of dear old England. In our hot summer of Australian December, when the great river that divided and bounded my pastures drivelled to a string of pools, and my cattle were panting around — at the quiet hour of the evening, when the stars, shining with a brilliancy unknown in northern climes, realised the idea of the blessed night when tho star of Bethlehem startled and guided the kings of the Eastern world on their pious pilgrimage — my thoughts travelled across the sea to England. I did not feel the sultry heat, or hear the cry of the night-bird, or the howl of the dingoe. I was across the sea, among the Christmas revellers. I saw the gay flushed faces of my kindred and friends shining round the Christmas table ; the grace was said, the toast went round. I heard my own name mentioned, and the gay faces grew sad. Then I awoke from my dream and found myself alone, and wept. But in a lifo of action there is no time for useless grieving, though time enough for reflection and resolution. Therefore, after visions like these, I resolved that the time should come when, on a Christmas Day, the toast, " To Absent Friends" should be answered by the Australian himself. The time did come — this very year of the half-century. Earnest labour and sobor economy had prospered with me. The rich district in which I was one of the earliest pioneers had become settled and pacified, as far as the river ran ; the wild Myols had grown into the tame, blanket-clothed dependents of the settlers. Thousands of fine-woolled flocks upon the hills, and cattle upon the rich flats, were mine ; the bark hut had changed into a verandahed cottage, where books and pictures formed no insignificant part of the furniture ; neighbours were within a ride ; tho voices of children often floated sweetly along the waters of the river. Then said I to myself, I can return now. Not to remain ; for the land I have conquered from the wilderness shall be my home for life : but I Avill return, to press tho hands that have longed for many years to press mine ; to kiss away the tears that dear sisters shed when they think of me, once almost an outcast ; to take upon my knees those littlo ones who have been taught to pray for their " uncle in a far land across the broad deep sea." Perhaps I had a thought of winning some rosy English face and true English heart to share my pastoral home. ' I did return, and trod again the shores of my mother country. My boyish expectations had not been realised, but better hopes had. I was not returning laden with treasures, to rival the objects of my foolish youthful vanity : but I was returning thankful, grateful, contented, independent, to look round once more on my native land, and then return to settle in the land of niy adoption. ' It Avas midAvintor Avhen I landed at a small fishing villago in the extreme Avest of England ; for my impatience made me take advantage, during a calm in tho Channel, of the first fisher's boat that boarded us. The nearer Aye approached the shore, the moro impatient I grew to land. I insisted on giving my help to one of the heaA'y oars ; and no sooner had avo touched tho ground, than, throwing myself into the Avater, I Avaded on shore. Oh, easy-going men of the great Avorld, there ore some pleasures you can never tasto ; and among them is the enthusiasm, the heart-felt, awo-stricken admiration of the dweller among pastoral plains when he finds himself once more at home among tho gardens of England ! Garden is tho only word to express the appearance of England, especially the west, Avhere the bright green myrtlo lingers through tho winter, and the roadside near every town is bordered with charming cottages. At every mile I found some new object of admiration, above all, the healthful frosh cheeks of tho people; especially she sturdy, yet delicate-comploxioned lasses tripping away, basket in hand, from the markets in numbers, startling to one who had lived long Avhere the arrival of one, fair Avhite faco was an event. The approach to Jhe first great town Avas signalised by tokens less pleasing — nay, absolutely painful: — beggars, as I passed, stood iv their rags and whined for alms; and others, not less pitiful in appearance, did not beg, but looked so Avan and miserablo that it made my heart bleed. I gave to all, 'so that the man who • drove me stared. He stared still moro when I told him that I came from a country where there were no poor save the drunken and the idle. ' Entering a groat tOAvn, the Avhirl, the commotion of passers on foot, on horseback, and in vehicles of all kinds, made me giddy ; it was liko a sort of nightmare. The signs of wealth, the conveniences provided for every imaginable want, Avere veiy strange to me, fresh from a country where able-bodied labour was always in demand, while a man thought himself equal to the longest journey, through an untrodden country, with a blduket and a tin pot for ull his lumituro, and all his cooking apparatus. Whon I called in the landlord of

th>' inn to consult about getting on to Yorkshire in two days, as I wished to be with my friends as soon as possible, he said, " If you btay and rest to-night, you can get there by tho railroad to-morrow morning, in good time to oat your Christmas dinner." I had never thought of that, and had only a vague idea what a railroad was like. I reached the starting-place next morning, just in time to take my seat in a departing train. I started Avhen, with a fearful sound of labouring machinory, Aye moved, then whirled aAA'ay. I was ashamed of my fears ; yet thero Avere many in that train to whom a sea voyago would have ouiy been less terrible than tho solitary land journeys on horseback through tho bush of Australia, which wore to me a mere matter of course. Without accident, I reached the station near York, whore I had to take a conveyance to reach by a cross country road the house where I knew that one of my brothers, farming a few hundred acres of his own land, assembled as many of our family as possible at Christmas-time. The little inn was able to supply a gig, driven by a decayed post-boy. Plunging at once into questioning conversation, I found an old acquaintance in the driver, without revealing who I was. Not many years older than myself, soured, disappointed, racked in health, he took a different view of life to anything I had yet heard. All along my road shrough England I had been struck by the prosperous condition of the well-to-do people I had met in first-class carriages. His occupation, his glory, was departed ; he was obliged to do anything, and wear anything, instead of his once smart costume, and once pleasant occupation — instead of his gay jacket, and rapid ride, and handsome presents from travellers, and good dinners from landlords. In doleful spirits, ho had a scoro of tales to tell of others worse off than himself — of landlords of posting-houses in the workhouse, and smart four-in-hand coachmen begging thoir bread — of farmers sunk doAvn to labourers ; and other doloful stories of the fate of those who were not strong enough for the race of life in England. Then I began to see there are two sides to the life that looked so brilliant out of the plate-glass windows of a firstclass carriage. The luxuries and comforts which taxes and turnpikes buy, are Avell worth the cost to those who can pay them; those who cannot will do better to make shift in a colony. Thus thinking and talking, as I approached the place where, unexpected, I was to appear before . a gathering of my relations, my flow of spirits died away. The proud consciousness of having conquered fortune, the beauty of the Avinter scenery (for winter, Avith its hoar frost shading the trees and foliage, has strange dazzling beauty to the eyes of those Avho have been accustomed to the ono perpetual greenbroAvn of semi-tropical Australia) had tilled me full to overflowing with bounding joyoiisness. Gaily I answered back to the " Good-night, master," of the passing peasantry, and vigorously puffed at my favourite pipe, in clouds that rivalled and rolled along with the clouds of mist that rose from the sweating horses. But the decayed postilion's stories of misery, in which he seemed to revel, damped me. My pipe went out, and my chin sunk despondingly on my breast. At length I asked, " Did he know the Bamards?" "Oh, yes, he knew them all." Mr John had been very lucky Avith the railroad through one of his farms. He had ridden a pair at Miss Margaret's wedding, and driven a mourning coach at Miss Mary's funeral. The mare in the gig had belonged to Ur John, and had been a rare good hunter. Mr Robert had doctored him for his rheumatics. "Did he know any more?" "Oh, yes; there Avas Master Charles ; he went abroad somewhere to furren parts. Some people say he's dead, got killed, or hung, or something ; and some say he's made a power of money. He was a wild slip of a lad. Many a time he's been out in tho roads with some one I know very well, snaring hares and smoking of pheasants. There's a mark on my forehead noAv, where I fell, Avhen ho put a furze bush under the tail of a colt I Avas breaking. He was n droll chap, surely." There Avas scarcely a kind feeling in the poor man's breast. The loss of his occupation, poverty, and drink, had sadly changed the fine country lad, barely ten years older than myself, whom I had left behind in England. So, turning, I said, " Well, Joe, j'ou don't seem to remember me ; I am Charles Barnard." — " Lord, sir!" he answered, in a whining tone, " I beg your pardon. You are a great gentleman ; I always thought you would be. So, you are going to dine with Mr John ? Well, sir, I hope you won't forget a Christmasbox, for old acquaintance sake ? " I was repelled, and Avished myself back in Australia ; my mind began to misgive mo as to tho wisdom of my unexpected visit. It Avas bright moonlight Avhen Aye drove into the village. I had a mile to walk ; I woidd not let chattering Joe drive me ; so left him happy over a hot supper, with no stinted allowance oi ale. I walked on quickly, until approaching tho old house — the mansion-house, once, but the estates had long been divided from it — I paused. My courage failed as I passed through tho gate ; theirs clang disturbed tho dogs — they began to bark fiercely. I Avas a stranger; the dogs that knew me Avore all dead. Twice I paced round, with difficulty repressing my emotion, before I could find courage to approach the door. The peals of laughter, the gay music that rang out from time to time, the lights flying from Avindow to window of the upper rooms, filling mo with plea-sing-painful feelings, long unknown. There AA*as folly in my mysterious arrival ; but romance is part of a life of solitude. Unreasonably, I was for a moment vexed that they could be so merry -, but next moment better thoiights prevailed. I stepped to tho well-remembered door, and rang a great peal ; the maid opened it to mo without question, for many guests were oxpected. As I stooped to lay aside my cloak and cap, a

lovely child in white ran down the stairs, threw her arms round my neck, and, with a hearty kiss, cried, " I havo caught you under the mistletoe, cousin Alfred." Then she started from me, and loosening her hold, and staring at me with large timid brown eyes, said — " Who are you ? you are not a new uncle, are you ?" Oh, how my heart was relieved ! the child saw a likeness ; I should not be disowned. All my plans, all my preparations were forgotten ; I was in tho midst of them ; and after fifteen years I saw again the Christmas fire, the Christmas table, the Christmas faces, that I had dreamed of so often ! To describe that night is impossible. Long after midnight we sat ; the children unwillingly left my knees for bed : my brothers gazed and wondered ; my sisters crowded round mo, kissed my brown-bearded cheeks, and pressed my sun-burned hands. Many new scenes of blessed Christmas may I have ; never one like that which welcomed the wanderer home ! But although England has its blessed seasons and festivals, in which Clu'istmas Day stands first ; and, although that Christmas meeting will often and again be before my eyes, I cannot stay in England. My lifo is moulded to my adopted | country ; and whore I havo earned fortune, there I will spend it. The restraints, the conventionalities, the bonds created by endless divisions of society, are more than I can onduro ; care seems to sit on every brow, and scornful pride in imaginary social superiority on too many. I have found the rosy English faco, and the true English heart ! Some one who listened to the Australian stories of my Christmas week, which my friends were never tired of hearing, is ready to leave all and follow live to my pastoral home. I am now preparing for departure ; and neither society, nor books, nor music, will be wanting in what was, when I first knew it, a forest and i grassy desert, peopled with wild birds and kangaroos. Nearly twenty relations accompany me ; some of thorn poor enough. In a few years you will find the Barnard-town settlement on Australian maps ; and there, at Christmas-time, or at any time, true men and good women shall meet with welcome and help from me, for I shall never forget that I once began the world, a shepherd in a solitude, and gazed on the bright stars of a Christmas night, shining in a hot and cloudless sky. — Household Words.