LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2269, 12 July 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

ECHOES OP THE PAST. Bv r on ald Cameron. j WATTLE FARM. AN IDYLL OF LANCEFIELD. 4 raapgior ctaloro Che recorcWi del tempo felico Nella, mlaeria. * '* Paste, Inferno. Ono of tho loveliest in Australia, cne of those few canes that remind the Anglo-Sax-m of beautiful IJevonahiro and charming Sussex, is tho farming district of LancetLld, which is situated some forty miles from Melbourne in a northerly direction. Thera a-e scattered over Australia many such places, and they are ou tho increase as settlement proceeds and becomes permanent. There is Christchurch, in Now Zealand, with its English lanes and farms : Launceston, in Tasmania; the Parramatta River, near Sydney, with its orange groves, the trees glossy green of loaf, laden with golden apples, such as we read of in tho fable of the Hesperidcs. permeating tho atmosphere with tho richest perfume. It is in suoh localities that tho wearied dweller iu the great cities can find peace and rest, can refresh hla jaded faculties, and revel in scenes and incident new and pleasing, and, perhaps, Lancefield is the most pleasant of all. Here, instead of the rush and roar, tho whirlwind of business, tho jar of neverending toil, tho vision of brlca and mortar and chimney pots, the visit w can restore his eyes with the eight of.illimitable green fields, from which rise, here and there, homely farmhouses, and to his ears will come tha musical low of cattle, and the dreamy murmur of agricultural life ; while. If he chooses, a few minutes will take him to tho mountains, where nature is still primeval, whore ha will see the gnarled gums, the fern valleys, and listen to tho twittering of tho birds Here for a while he can forget the cares of the world, and wander from field to mountain, ‘the world forgeting, by the world forgot,’ and he may commune with nature and his own thought?, undisturbed, until the evening falls, and he can realise Gray's lines :

“ The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o’er tha lea ; The ploughman homeward plods his weary way. And leaves the world to darkness and to me !”

One of Australia’s loveliest days £was closing over Lanoefield, and the charming district was seen to tho utmost advantage In the light cast by the slanting, golden rays of the sun, which was rapidly (sinking behind the dark ranges of Mount Macsdon. Sitting in front of a farmhouse, on one of the gentle eminences that command a perfect view of the whole Lanoefield panorama, was an aged, withered woman, decently but poorly clad. Hers was a remarkable face —once more that ordinarily beautiful—in whose fading lineaments one could trace the deepest sorrow. A gentle, resigned face it was, such as every man would like to call that of his mother ; and the white hair that escaped from her cap —or, as It would bo called in the Highlands of Scotland, cxtrach —gave her a singularly venerable appear, anoe, to which the tsars that occasionally trickled down her furrowed cheeks added a very painful interest. Her look was that of one who gazed upon the scene for the lust time, who felt that it was necessary to photograph the outlines on the brain, that they might be called up hereafter to cheer tho soul when far away in other scenes. And it was a beautful picture of the dear old mother saw stretched before her in the golden glow of evening Wherever she turned her eyes there appeared a gently undulating country, divided into farms and fields of varying hues of green, and dotted with farmhouses, from which rose thin colnmna of smoke, tailing that the cheerful evening meal was being prepared. Here and there the milking was being proceeded with, and the lowing of the gentle kine was borne on the breezes. It was a study to note the varying shade of the crops—the rich green hue of the potatoes rising from, the dark soil in which they were planted, the light bluish green of the pea fields varied by the purple of their blossoms, the tender emerald of the wheat and oats, and the delicate, light shades of the chicory plant, while here and there appeared lovely awards of grass Interspersed with flowers, and most charming of all were the gardens and orchards, whose hues told of trees of other climes. In the valley beneath was to be seen tho scattered, yet picturesque, township of Lancefield, the dwellings peeping through the trees. This picture was framed hr tho semicircle sweep of the Dividing Bange, covered with the dingy bluish green foliage of encalptl, the peaks of Mount William and Mount Maoadon breaking the monotony of the amphitheatre. It was the picture of an English scene framed in tho woods and mountains of Australia—the old and the new in perfect accordance, yet entirely distinct. Tennyson ta’la us the old order changeth for the now, but, in Aus tralla, it Is the new or native that gives place to the old or English. Agnes Lament, as she gazed upon the lovely scene, sleeping in the golden light of dying day, enveloped in that indescribable coming home expression that pervades tho evening, however, only saw aa if in a dream ; her thoughts were afar off, away in busy in peopling this landscape with bygone actors, with the Phantom Shadows of Memory, and if she was recalled occasionally to the present, it was with the feeling that Homer penned the immortal thoughts which Pope has clothed in his verses :

“Like leaves on trees the race of man is found. Now green in youth, now withering on the ground : Another race the following spring supplies ; They fall success!,o, and successive rise.”

If she admired the prospect, her heart was wrung to think she was destined soon to bo torn from It, never to see the green hills and the grey mountains again. ’Tis wonderful how the hills, the fields, and the valleys, where we have spent the happiest hours of existence, become as part of our being, to tear ourselves away from which often casts our life.

Let us not intrude upon the lonely old lady’s thoughts, too sacred for even the most daring pen ; we can obtain all the information we require by visiting Lancefield and listening to the gossip at the tea-table of Mrs Leach, the wife of one cf the most thriving storekeepers. Mrs Leach had that afternoon invited several gossips to have a cup of tea with her There watjuhe minister's lady, some wealthy farmers’ wives, and an old identity, Mrs Oalder, from Mount William. A happy afternoon the ladies had, talking harmless scandal and chit-chat, occasionally varied by discursive remarks on the new fashions, on making cheese and butter, and on domestic questions, all of them mysterious to the rougher sex. It wss, therefore, with a sigh of regret the ladies began to think of donning their cloaks preparatory to leaving Mrs Leach’s cosy, taste-fully-furnished room. They desired to leave altogether, as women folk generally do, for It is ill for one to leave first, as she may expect to be dealt with severely by tho:e who are left.

* I wonder where the doctor’s gene !’ said one; 1 1 saw him go np the road a little while ago.’ J I heard,’ said Mrs Leach, ‘that the measles have broken ont at Eochfoid.’

• Deary me!’ said a farmer’s wife ;‘ I hope it’s not iu Sullivan’s family, for we live close to them.’

‘I did hear,’remarked another farmer’s wife, ‘that old Sandy M'Bean had been complaining. He lives up that way.’ * And serve him right,’said Mrs Leach, with an Indignant flush, * for the way the old miser’s served poor Mrs Lament.’ * Mrs Lament,’ interrupted Mrs Calder. a venerable lady, with snow-white hair, and a kindly Scotch face. I Ye diuna mean Agnes ?' Mrs Calder was only on a visit, and knew little of Lancefield gossip. * Yes, Mrs Calder,’ replied Mrs Leach. * It’s years since I saw her,' sa’d Mrs Calder, with a dreamy look in her face. ‘She was a bonny woman then. I re-

• Father Chancer expresses the same idea, as well as Dante, in his lines : For, of Fortune’s sharp adversite. The worst of kind of misfortune is this— A man that has been in prosperite. And it remembers when it passed is.

member when she came here. A fine man was Angus Lament, an’ an industrious farmer. A-id Sandy M'Bean, I kenned him too ; ho was ever a clour man, and kecpit, - firm held o’ the gear. An’ what’s Sandy going to do. ’ (To hr continued )