Read Online The Gallant by William Stuart Long - Free Book Online
Authors: William Stuart Long
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yet-against all reason-the hope persisted, and she felt tears well into her eyes.
William was like her brother Red, she told herself-for had not Red put his naval career before the ties of home and family? Besides, if she herself had really wanted to settle on the land, she would have married Edmund Tempest-as everyone had supposed she would-instead of choosing to wed the man in the bemedaled British cavalry uniform, who was now about to take her away from the world she had always known to one that, however secretly, she feared.
As if sensing her unvoiced distress, Sarah Osborne touched her arm and pointed to a line of low stone buildings that came into view just ahead. Most of the buildings appeared to be of utilitarian origin-store sheds and stables or the like-but in the center stood a white-painted cottage, with an overhanging shingle roof. The cottage was picturesque, its walls and the veranda that fronted it covered by a vividly flowering creeper, and its garden, behind a low picket fence, was ablaze with color. Vines, fruit trees, and flowers grew in healthy profusion in well-cared-for plots to the sides and rear of the flower beds, and the path to the front door was paved, with white-painted stones placed at intervals to mark its course.
The cottage appeared to be unoccupied, despite the neatness of its garden; no smoke rose from its single cookhouse chimney, and a flock of brilliantly colored parakeets, disturbed by the approaching cavalcade, took wing with shrill cries of alarm, to seek refuge in a nearby apple tree.
“That was our first home-Pumpkin Cottage, Jenny,” Sarah Osborne said. “And the first garden I stole from the bush and planted with flowers and trees that reminded me of home. The vines and the vegetables came later-even the potatoes had to take second place to my flowers! Originally it was a bark cabin. It’s been added to, of course-as our family grew, so did our
William Stuart Long
dwelling place. But then we couldn’t add to it any more, and Henry built our present homestead, Marshall Mount, and planted the Moreton Bay fig tree you admired-goodness, it must be almost ten years ago that we moved! I still love this little house though, and the homestead garden has never quite matched this one. Dear Pumpkin Cottage!”
She smiled reminiscently, and, studying her serene, still-beautiful face, Jenny thought how much she liked and admired Sarah Osborne.
The years and the strain of childbearing had robbed her of her once slim and elegant figure; her hair was graying, brow and cheeks were deeply lined, but she had retained in full measure all her charm and her zest for life.
And her husband and those of her children still living under the paternal roof made no secret of the fact that they adored her… . Jenny echoed her smile.
“It’s lovely, Mrs. Osborne,” she said, referring to the cottage and its surroundings. “But is there no one living here now?”
“There will be very soon,” her hostess assured her.
“The family of our two young stockmen from the old country, Tom and Joseph, will be coming out within the next few weeks.” Her smile widened. “It’s quite a romantic story, really. Henry had always maintained that he owes his start out here to the proprietor of an inn called the Gillespie Arms, in Dungannon, County Tyrone.”
Sarah launched into the story, smiling the while, as she described her husband’s eagerness to reach her father’s rectory in Dromore, which had led to his forgetting the draft for a thousand pounds-his entire capital-in the pocket of the cloak he had left in the inn to be dried.
“Old Mr. Doakes preserved the draft for him,” she concluded. “And it was on his advice that Henry invested the money in a cargo of Irish linen, which he sold for three times its cost in Sydney when we arrived. And on the proceeds he was able to stock the land grant he was given as a new settler.”
It was, indeed, a romantic story, Jenny thought. And
William was like her brother Red, she told herself-for had not Red put his naval career before the ties of home and family? Besides, if she herself had really wanted to settle on the land, she would have married Edmund Tempest-as everyone had supposed she would-instead of choosing to wed the man in the bemedaled British cavalry uniform, who was now about to take her away from the world she had always known to one that, however secretly, she feared.
As if sensing her unvoiced distress, Sarah Osborne touched her arm and pointed to a line of low stone buildings that came into view just ahead. Most of the buildings appeared to be of utilitarian origin-store sheds and stables or the like-but in the center stood a white-painted cottage, with an overhanging shingle roof. The cottage was picturesque, its walls and the veranda that fronted it covered by a vividly flowering creeper, and its garden, behind a low picket fence, was ablaze with color. Vines, fruit trees, and flowers grew in healthy profusion in well-cared-for plots to the sides and rear of the flower beds, and the path to the front door was paved, with white-painted stones placed at intervals to mark its course.
The cottage appeared to be unoccupied, despite the neatness of its garden; no smoke rose from its single cookhouse chimney, and a flock of brilliantly colored parakeets, disturbed by the approaching cavalcade, took wing with shrill cries of alarm, to seek refuge in a nearby apple tree.
“That was our first home-Pumpkin Cottage, Jenny,” Sarah Osborne said. “And the first garden I stole from the bush and planted with flowers and trees that reminded me of home. The vines and the vegetables came later-even the potatoes had to take second place to my flowers! Originally it was a bark cabin. It’s been added to, of course-as our family grew, so did our
William Stuart Long
dwelling place. But then we couldn’t add to it any more, and Henry built our present homestead, Marshall Mount, and planted the Moreton Bay fig tree you admired-goodness, it must be almost ten years ago that we moved! I still love this little house though, and the homestead garden has never quite matched this one. Dear Pumpkin Cottage!”
She smiled reminiscently, and, studying her serene, still-beautiful face, Jenny thought how much she liked and admired Sarah Osborne.
The years and the strain of childbearing had robbed her of her once slim and elegant figure; her hair was graying, brow and cheeks were deeply lined, but she had retained in full measure all her charm and her zest for life.
And her husband and those of her children still living under the paternal roof made no secret of the fact that they adored her… . Jenny echoed her smile.
“It’s lovely, Mrs. Osborne,” she said, referring to the cottage and its surroundings. “But is there no one living here now?”
“There will be very soon,” her hostess assured her.
“The family of our two young stockmen from the old country, Tom and Joseph, will be coming out within the next few weeks.” Her smile widened. “It’s quite a romantic story, really. Henry had always maintained that he owes his start out here to the proprietor of an inn called the Gillespie Arms, in Dungannon, County Tyrone.”
Sarah launched into the story, smiling the while, as she described her husband’s eagerness to reach her father’s rectory in Dromore, which had led to his forgetting the draft for a thousand pounds-his entire capital-in the pocket of the cloak he had left in the inn to be dried.
“Old Mr. Doakes preserved the draft for him,” she concluded. “And it was on his advice that Henry invested the money in a cargo of Irish linen, which he sold for three times its cost in Sydney when we arrived. And on the proceeds he was able to stock the land grant he was given as a new settler.”
It was, indeed, a romantic story, Jenny thought. And
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