"Oh, not much!" he said. "Thanks, all the same, sonny, but I wouldn't take it from you. Now, I'm pretty straight, so I'll clear out, for it's quite evident that we can't move about together. So long." Dick squeezed himself against his bunk to leave room for the great form as he moved to the door.
His mother was a little inclined to be sympathetic on the subject a little later.
"Oh, he might be worse," Dick said. "He's really quite a good sort. And we shan't see so much of each other in the cabin, 'cause I'm going to get up awfully early. You see, I don't want to waste a single minute of my time on board ship."
"Well, you could nearly always take refuge in here if you were very crowded," Mrs. Lester said.
"Thanks very much, mummie." Dick glanced round her cabin; it was the same size as his own, but looked, somehow, immeasurably larger. The second bunk was not made up, and looked inviting as a sofa. Already his mother had unpacked, and her dainty belongings made the tiny place homelike. "It is jolly, isn't it?" the small boy said.
"Yes, it's quite comfy. We'll use it together as a sitting-room, Dickie. There's the bugle for dinner—come along."
There were many people in the long alley-way, hurrying towards the dining saloon. Smooth water was certain for the first few hours of the journey while they steamed down the Gulf. What sort of weather might await them when they turned into the Bight—that place of many storms—no one could say. Therefore, there was a general determination to have at least one meal in comfort. People trooped up from their cabins and down from the deck, crowding into the big saloon. The stewards were busy directing all to their places, and delicately shepherding new-comers from seats already reserved.
Mrs. Lester and Dick found themselves at a table presided over by the ship's doctor, who promptly made himself known to all the passengers, found out their names and saw to it that all under his wing felt at home. He was a plump, cheery man, full of anecdotes and chatter. Dick felt that it would be jolly to sit at his table. Opposite the Lesters were four vacant places. Already at the table were a thin and angular lady, whose name they found out was Miss Simpson; a very pretty girl of eighteen, with her mother, a Mrs. Merritt, and a tall, silent man, Mr. Dunstan, who looked as though he hailed from the bush, and made but the briefest of responses to the doctor's jokes.
Close at hand was the captain's table, where, as the doctor remarked, "Emperors and pontiffs" might be found. There were no emperors aboard this time; the nearest approach to a pontiff was an English bishop, who, with his wife, was touring Australia. He was a pink and pleasant person, who rather gave the impression that he was curate to his wife—a very tall woman, stout, dignified and extremely English. Dick rejoiced inwardly that he did not sit near this dignitary. He went as far as to feel sympathy for the captain himself, who made heavy weather in his efforts to entertain her, and used to look slightly exhausted towards the close of a meal. A famous singer—a tall, handsome woman—was also at his table; and a noted actor, whom the bishop's wife snubbed whenever possible. There was a chief justice from an eastern state, he had a keen, clever face, at which Dick liked to look when he spoke. The other people included a ship's captain going to take command of a vessel at Fremantle; a member of Parliament and his wife, a Riverina squatter, a German wool buyer and one or two others less distinguished. Dick eyed them with awe, and was glad that he sat at another table.
Just as the soup appeared, a quiet-looking young man slipped into one of the vacant seats at the doctor's left; and presently a party of three arrived to complete the table—Dick's enormous cabin mate, with his wife and little girl. They sat down opposite, and immediately the little girl made a face at Dick.
Now, Dick did not know much of the ways of girls, little or big. He was thirteen, and at thirteen girls are the last things a boy worries about. Therefore, this pleasantry on the part of the new-comer merely puzzled him slightly. He wrinkled his nose a little and went on with his soup.
The doctor was greeting them boisterously.
"Good evening, Mrs. Warner. Had a good run round Adelaide?"
"Oh, delightful," said the lady vaguely. Her husband laughed.
"Much she knows of Adelaide," he said. "She's been to a tea-party at the club, and Merle and I have been running round like good tourists. Haven't we, Merle?"
The little girl muttered something that sounded like "Horrid place!" and again Mr. Warner laughed.
"Merle is in the stage of disliking everything outside her own boundary fence," he said, attacking his dinner. "I've shown her all the beauties of Eastern Australia, and she still says there's no place like the sandy west, so we'll go back for another ten years or so before coming this side again." His eye fell on Dick, and he nodded in a friendly way. "Why, there's my cabin mate," he said. "I say, doctor, don't you think it's a trifle hard on a boy of that size to find he has drawn me in the lucky bag?"
"Distinctly," agreed the doctor, "but great luck for you." He made the Warners and Lesters known to each other, and the elders chatted through dinner. Merle, after another grimace at Dick, did not look his way again, for which he was mildly thankful. He decided that she was a cheeky kid, and thought no more about her—save that whenever he chanced to look across he saw the square little face, surrounded by a shock of dark hair and crowned with an enormous butterfly bow of black ribbon.
The Warners, it seemed, were station owners north of Coolgardie, and they were returning from a trip east.
"Our first for over twelve years," Mrs. Warner said. "We had a run over just after we were married."
"And we've never had any time since," ejaculated Mr. Warner.
"No, what with babies and hard work," Mrs. Warner's face saddened. Later, Mrs. Lester learned that two of the babies had failed to pull through a very bad summer. They had begun with a very little place, but gradually luck had come their way, and now they owned a big run.
"Thanks to our being willing to go out-back," said Mr. Warner. "People nowadays forget what the first settlers did—our grandparents, who went cheerfully out into the wilds and thought themselves lucky if they got a mail and stores twice a year. There's any amount of room yet for men and women with pluck enough to go into the back-country. But most of them nowadays want a place two minutes from a township, with a post office and a picture theatre round the corner. It makes me tired."
"Are you far out?" Mrs. Lester asked.
"Oh, not so far. Now that we have a car we get a mail once a fortnight, and that has made us feel very civilised. We used to have trouble with the blacks, but they're tame enough now."
"It was lonely enough at times," Mrs. Warner said. "One used to long to see another white woman. But now that the children are bigger things are better."
"Your little girl is old enough to be a companion to you now," Mrs. Lester said, smiling at Merle, who merely scowled.
"More of a companion to me, I'm afraid," said Mr. Warner, laughing. "Merle isn't a domesticated person; she thinks horses and dogs are the only real things that matter."
"So they are," said Merle, suddenly, in a kind of small explosion. Everyone laughed and she flushed to the roots of her black hair.
"Oh, Merle will become domesticated soon enough—she isn't twelve yet," her mother said, comfortably. "She is to have a governess when we get back."
"I pity the poor governess who is to teach Merle all the useful domestic arts," said Mr. Warner. "She will have an uphill game."
The angular lady, Miss Simpson, spoke suddenly.
"Do you not think," she asked, "that the tuition of the useful arts should begin at a very much earlier age?" Her voice, like herself, was angular; she glared at Merle, who returned the glare with interest. "Much more was expected of little girls when I was young."
Mr. Warner gave one of his great laughs.
"Oh, much more, I'm sure," he said. "But surroundings count for something; perhaps you weren't brought up on a lonely run, where your only playmates were horses and dogs."
"Certainly not," said Miss Simpson. "I was brought up in London. And in my day young ladies learned decorum."
"What's decorum?" asked Merle bluntly.
"Something you haven't got, my little savage," said her father.
"Well, what is it, anyhow?"
"Decorum is refined and ladylike behaviour," said Miss Simpson severely.
"Must be beastly," said Merle and went on with her dinner.
"That's enough, Merle," said her father, looking annoyed. He turned back to the thin lady.
"Life in London has not many of the problems that beset small Australians," he said. "Merle found a cow bogged in a swamp once. I was away, so she had to gallop in to the homestead, collect a few rubbishy blacks, the only men about, and get them on to the job of rescue. I believe she had to wade in herself and hold up the poor brute's head while they tugged her out. Of course, it was only a very ordinary thing for a bush-bred child; no particular credit to Merle. But it wouldn't have fitted in with your ideal of decorum, would it?"
"Most certainly not," said the angular lady. "It seems a fearful thing for a little girl to do."
"But it saved the cow."
"Then you place a cow before your daughter's welfare?"
"It never did me any harm," said Merle, fiercely. "And a cow's a cow!"
Mr. Warner's crack of laughter made heads turn in his direction.
"Beyond doubt a cow is a cow," he said. "We rank 'em high out back. Seriously, Miss Simpson, you wouldn't see an animal choke to death rather than upset decorum, would you?
"I am glad that such incidents have not come my way," said the spinster, vinegarishly. "I cannot but think a little girl would be better at a good boarding school than exposed to influences of the kind you describe. What, may I ask, will be your daughter's future?"
"Oh, she'll be pretty useful, I hope," said the squatter, cheerfully. "There, Merle, go on with your pudding," for the subject of the discussion showed imminent signs of bursting with wrath. "We'll take you in hand yet and make a young lady of you. All the same, I'll be disgusted if you ever turn your back on a cow in a bog!"
The silent young man spoke.
"I reckon," he said in a slow drawl, "that some of our old hands would have been in a bit of a hole if their womenfolk hadn't been willin' to lend a hand outside. My old grandmother talked half a dozen languages, and played three or four instruments, and sang in Italian and painted on satin, and all that sort of thing, and before she came out from England she'd never so much as made a bed. Then she came to Sydney with her father's regiment, and married and went up into the Never-Never country. After that there wasn't anything she didn't do, from fightin' blacks and bush fires and floods to helpin' clear the land and build the house. Did it all well too. Didn't hurt her, either, she said; she liked it. Great old sort. Lots like her, of course. Reckon they made Australia."
"Yes, and we're proud of 'em," said Mr. Warner. He grinned. "But what about their decorum, Miss Simpson?"
"I think the dear bishop is rising," said the spinster, acidly. "If you will excuse me——" She left the table in the wake of the "pontiffs."
"All the same," said Mr. Warner, when the laugh had subsided, "it isn't quite the same thing. Those old grandmothers of ours had decorum—stacks of it. They never lost it, even when they did a man's work. I suppose it was because they had so much of it ground into them when they were young. And it never did them any harm. But somehow nowadays it doesn't seem an easy matter to put on the decorum layer first. I don't know how it is." He looked across the table. "Got any little girls, Mrs. Lester?"
"No, only one bad boy," replied Dick's mother.
"Just as well for your peace of mind. Girls are a great responsibility, especially when they persist in thinking they're boys." He tweaked his small daughter's hair. "Finished? Then suppose we go up on deck, and you can make friends with my cabin mate."
But Merle looked across at Dick scornfully.
"I'm going to see the engines," she said, with her nose tilted. "The chief engineer said he'd take me, an' mother said I could."
"Oh, all right," said her father, easily. "You can make friends with Dick to-morrow." To which Dick, smarting under the double injury of her scorn and the fact that she—a scrap of a girl—was about to revel in the engine room, for which his whole soul hankered, registered a vow that he'd see her farther first. His nose was as tilted as Merle's own as he passed her on his way to the deck.
Dick woke early next morning, and looked about him for a minute in bewilderment before he remembered where he was. He had been dreaming that he was in the dormitory at school, with Bottles snoring as he always snored. It was confusing to awaken in a narrow berth, with white-panelled walls creaking close by. The ship gave a lurch, and a cabin trunk slid half-way out from under the opposite berth, then it went back again, and Dick experienced a peculiar feeling of hollowness and discomfort that he could not classify, coupled with a longing for fresh air.
He hopped up on his bed, and put his head out of the open porthole. The sun had just risen, and stared him in the face across a long stretch of heaving sea—grey, tossing water, broken here and there by a "white horse." A keen breeze swept by; Dick drank in a great draught of it, and from that moment forgot his first and last hint of seasickness. It was too cold to stay, however, he shivered in his thin pyjamas, and returned to the shelter of the blankets.
The snoring that had put Bottles into his dream was still going on, though louder than Bottles had ever snored. It came from the berth where Mr. Warner slumbered peacefully, lying on his back, with his mouth wide open. Dick reflected enviously upon the chance such an attitude on the part of Bottles would have afforded his interested dormitory mates, though Master Glass had grown cunning, even in repose, since his friends, having caught him snoring open-mouthed, had filled up the yawning cavity with soap shavings. The memory of the victim foaming at the mouth returned to Dick and he chuckled—at which, to his great alarm, Mr. Warner half roused and said, "Eh, Merle?" Dick refrained from answering, and in a moment there was audible evidence that the huge man, waked, like the lobster, too soon, was slumbering again.
The ship was beginning to stir. Overhead could be heard trampling feet and the swish of hoses, as the decks were washed down; in the passages the stewards were busy with mops and brooms. Dick decided that bed had lost its charms, and, seizing a towel, went forth in search of a bath. A friendly steward directed him to a bath-room, and gave him a big, rough towel, remarking that the smooth and shiny one he carried was merely for "moppin' yourself up in the cabin," and Dick presently revelled in a huge bath of hot sea-water, followed by an icy shower. He returned glowing, and finished dressing rapidly, while Mr. Warner slumbered and snored in calm majesty. Then he seized his cap and ran out.
In the alleyway he met his own cabin steward, who greeted him cheerfully.
"Morning, you're up early. Like a cup of tea?"
"Rather!" said Dick, who, like all bush boys, could drink tea a dozen times a day if opportunity occurred.
"Right-oh!" said the steward. "Wait half a jiff."
He dived into a passage, and presently reappeared with a cup of tea, the saucer encumbered with two biscuits and a banana.
"Like to take it up on deck?"
"Good idea," said Dick. "Thanks, awfully."
He mounted the stairs with care—the ship was lurching a little, and he was not used to carrying liquids on a floor that rose and fell beneath him. Still, he reached the deck, although with not more than a quarter of the tea in the saucer—he had prudently pocketed the biscuits and fruit—and sat down near the rail to dispose of his load. This over, he took back his cup and saucer and was greeted with astonished thanks by the bewildered steward, who said, "Lor', you could 'a lef' it up on deck—someone or other'd take it down."
Dick ran up again quickly. The wet decks glistened in the morning sunshine. A few of the men passengers were astir; some still in pyjamas; but no women were visible. An officer coming by gave him a pleasant greeting. He went forward until he could look down on the lower deck, where sailors were busy mopping, coiling ropes and generally stowing everything in ship-shape fashion for the uninterrupted run west. Land was still in sight on the starboard, a faint blue line of hills; ahead and to port there was nothing but the grey waste of heaving sea, brightened to blue wherever the sunlight sparkled on it. The air was full of sea birds, circling round the ship on the alert for any scrap of food that might be thrown over. As he watched a flock of gulls pounced, screaming, on the contents of a refuse tin from the galley, and fought over the spoil. To port, half a mile away, a little steamer wallowed along, her smoke making a black trail in her wake.
It was too cold to stand still, so Dick joined the steady march round the deck, taken by the few passengers who were about. Turning a corner presently he almost ran into someone coming rapidly in the opposite direction—Merle Warner, with her shock of hair flying in the wind, and her hands digging deeply into the pockets of a rough blue serge overcoat.
"Can't you look where you're goin', silly," she demanded.
"Didn't see you," Dick responded cheerfully. He had had ideas of apologising, but they vanished hurriedly. They glared at each other.
"Is my daddy up?" she demanded.
"He wasn't when I left," Dick said. "Don't think he meant to be, either, by the way he was snoring."
She flamed into anger.
"You're cheeky. My daddy never snores!"
"Oh, doesn't he?" returned the bewildered Dick. "Well, you go down to the cabin and listen, that's all, if you don't believe me."
"I don't need to go—I know he doesn't," she said loftily. "I expect you were snoring yourself, and thought it was my daddy. I think he's jolly good to let you sleep in his cabin."
The amazing effrontery of this made Dick gasp.
"Well—you have a nerve!" he said. "His cabin, indeed. I like that. It's mine just as much."
"No it isn't—-my daddy had it before you came."
"Well, we've paid for half, anyhow," said Dick, practically. "And even if your father is big, he can't sleep in two bunks."
"I don't care—you're just a horrid little nuisance, getting into a gentleman's cabin," declared Merle, endeavouring to tilt a rather snub nose.
The speech was meant to crush—as Dick remarked, later, to his mother, it might have been employed in describing a cockroach; but it had the wrong effect on Dick. He broke into a shout of laughter.
"I say," he cried, "it's as good as a play to hear you talk. You weren't behind the door when they served out bad tempers, anyhow, were you?"
It was ordinary schoolboy repartee, but it reduced Merle to impotent fury. She glared at him, speechless, her face flushing from brow to chin; and just then a friendly, boisterous presence swung round the corner.
"Hullo, children." The doctor greeted them cheerily. "Out for an early walk, eh?" Something in their demeanour made him look more keenly. "Why, I believe you're quarrelling! Fie now, for shame."
"Not we!" declared Dick laughing.
"I am," Merle exploded. "He's just a beastly little boy."
She turned, wriggled from the hand the doctor dropped on her shoulder, and fled, leaving the two bewildered males staring after her.
"Now that's a firework in petticoats!" ejaculated the doctor. "What's annoyed her, Dick?"
"Blest if I know," Dick replied, grinning. "You wouldn't have said she was in a good temper from the start, and then she went off like a packet of crackers 'cause I said her father snored. And he does snore, too!"
"Snore—why, man alive, he's like an engine!" said the doctor. "He went to sleep in the smoking-room the other day, and before long he'd cleared the room. Snored 'em clean out. How could a man of his build fail to snore, may I ask?"
"Well, he doesn't fail to," said Dick laughing.
"That is so, certainly. But I suppose that square-faced small daughter of his thought you were insulting him. Never mind, she'll get over it. Come for a walk. You ought to do a mile round the deck three times a day at least. Passengers who do that never develop livers!"
"I don't think I have one," Dick grinned.
"Continue in that belief, if you can, my son, and then you won't make any doctor's fortune. There's disinterested advice for you!" The doctor set off round the deck with long strides, so that to keep up gave Dick no little exertion. They pounded along, too fast for conversation. The deck was sprinkled with passengers now, and at every moment new heads appeared, coming up the companion ladders. There was no sign of Merle, but presently they encountered Mrs. Warner, with a five-year-old boy, and stopped to greet her.
"Good morning," said the doctor. "And how's my friend Bobby?"
"Vezzy well," said Bobby, solemnly. He looked at Dick with interest. "Is you the new boy?"
"I expect so," Dick replied.
"Merle says you is a beast. Is you?"
"Never mind Merle," Mrs. Warner said hastily. "She's just an old stupid. Of course Dick isn't a beast, Bobby."
"I don't fink you looks like one," Bobby pronounced, solemnly, after inspecting him.
Dick grinned, somewhat confused. He was never a person of many words, except with his mother; it was somewhat disconcerting to be dissected in public.
"You come along, and I'll show you the gulls," he said, and Bobby tucked a fat little hand into his hard paw and trotted off ecstatically. They made great friends over the swooping gulls, and Dick learned that there were two little Warners younger than Bobby—"twinses," the small boy said. Being but three, they were considered too young to travel; they stayed in Perth with Grannie. "We's goin' back to find the twinses now," Bobby finished.
"Are you glad?"
"Wather! They's troublesome kids, but they's nice. I've got a pony at home."
"So have I," said Dick. "Is yours a good one?"
"He's lovely," Bobby said solemnly. "His name's Micky. Can yours jump?"
"Can he—what!" said Dick, with a sudden homesick vision of Tinker and the great galloping stretches at home, of the log fences over which they loved to fly. It was believed that Dick would take Tinker across anything over which the pony could lift his nose. "Yes, he can jump a bit." Speech fell upon him with that beloved subject, and he talked of Tinker, with his eyes dancing, while the little boy hung upon his words and spurred him whenever he paused with, "Tell me more about him."
"We lost him once when he was a two-year-old," Dick said. "Some ass of a swagman burned some of our boundary fence—didn't put his camp fire out properly—-and a lot of our horses got out through the gap and into the ranges. We got most of 'em back, but Tinker and a little bay mare joined a mob of wild horses, and we never saw them for six months."
"Never any more?" Bobby's eyes were round with horror.
"Yes, we did. Father said he'd get Tinker back if it took him a year, and he took all the men out with him to hunt the mob down. He took me, too, on old Pivot. And we found the wild horses in a big gully in the ranges, and the men managed to get nearly round 'em before they smelt us. Then they went off like smoke. I was on top of a hill and I could see Tinker going with them. The men headed them back towards the plains, but they found a way up another gully, and I don't believe we'd ever have seen them again if it hadn't been for father."
"What did your faver do?"
"He just set sail across country—up the hill between the two gullies—you never saw such a hill to ride up—and down the other side. If it was bad going up, it was simply awful going down—all overgrown with trees and scrub, and great rocks sticking out of the ground. And father went down it at a gallop, as if he was on one of the plains. You never saw anything like it. The men said, 'Well the boss can break his neck if he likes—we're not going!'"
"Oo-oh!" said Bobby.
"The mob came up the gully at an awful bat—it was just a race between them and father. But he got down first, and he swung round down the gully, and, my aunt! you should have heard his stockwhip. It was just like rifle shots. He met the mob coming up in a narrow place, and they wouldn't face him—they pulled up and looked at him for a moment, and then they wheeled and went tearing back, and father after them. And of course the men were ready enough then—they kept 'em going down, never gave 'em a chance to wheel back into the ranges—got em out on the open plain and across through the gap into our run—and we yarded the whole blessed lot!"
"And Tinker, too?"
"Yes, Tinker too, of course. Father never would have come back if we hadn't got Tinker. My word, that was a gallop!" Dick's eyes were dancing. "I don't know how I got down the hill—old Pivot did it—he's the best stock horse you ever saw. He just did what he liked. I hadn't a say in it. You see, the only chance was to keep the mob going, never giving them a second to turn or break. All the men were using their stockwhips and yelling like fury, and father was riding out on the wing, near the big chestnut that was leading the mob—-he knew that was the horse to watch. He did try to wheel too, but father was always there with his whip. I guess that chestnut found out who was boss that day!"
"'I don't know how I got down the hill--old Pivot did it.'""'I don't know how I got down the hill—old Pivot did it.'"
"I say—your faver must be splendid."
"Of course he's splendid." Dick brushed away so superfluous an observation. "That chestnut's his best hack now. Father lassoed him in the yards, and broke him in himself, and you should have seen him buck. The men swore he'd always be an outlaw, but father said he wouldn't, and he beat him in the end. He wouldn't let another soul touch him, and though he goes quietly enough with father, no one else can ride him now. I guess father will have to break him in again now, 'cause he's been turned out for a year since father went to England."
"Was Tinker all right?" asked Bobby eagerly.
"Tinker just came up to me in the yards when they cut him out from the mob and put his old head down to my pocket, looking for an apple. He always did that from the time he was a foal."
Someone behind them—they were leaning over the rail, the ship forgotten—put a hand on Dick's shoulder, and the boy jumped round, his face flushing. Mr. Warner stood laughing at him—near him, Merle, her face a curious mixture of interest and sullenness.
"That was pretty exciting," said Mr. Warner.
Dick's colour deepened. He muttered incoherently something about "just telling the kid a yarn."
"You come to breakfast, Bobby," Merle said crossly. "Mother wants you." She seized the unwilling Bobby's hand and led him away.
Many people find the run across the Great Australian Bight a dull matter; and, indeed, if you should ever find yourself returning from the other side of the world, it is apt to be the longest part of all the long six weeks at sea. But to little Dick Lester, afloat for the first time, it was a voyage full of marvel and delight.
Dick did not give his masters at school an especially easy time; there was, I fear, nothing of the saintly little boy about him; nor did any of them ever have reason to suspect him of any especial cleverness. He was a very ordinary, healthy youngster, unencumbered by much brain power. But he did respectably at school and more than respectably at sports, because he was quite unable to take things easily. There was in his nature a streak of keenness that made the pursuit of the moment the most interesting thing possible. He flung himself heart and soul and generally with all his alert young body, too, into all he did. Naturally, his very keenness often made him make mistakes; but at least it saved him from dullness. "He's a provoking little animal," a tired form-master once said of him; "but, thank goodness, he's no slug!"
Being so designed, partly by Nature and partly by parents who had themselves that strong quality of keenness, it may readily be imagined that a ship opened up to Dick a storehouse of novelty and opportunity. He made his way into every permitted corner, and since he did not do it bumptiously, he found a welcome where a cheeky youngster would have been promptly ejected. The chief engineer succumbed to the longing face at the entrance to his mysterious domain, and let him spend hours in the engine room, where the roar and beat of the mighty machinery was the purest music in Dick's ears. He penetrated even to the stokehold, where, stripped of his outer garments, he toiled eagerly with a stoker's shovel, flinging great lumps of coal into the yawning mouths of the furnaces, where the flames leaped redly. There was something in feeling that, even for a moment, he was helping the onward rush of the ship that brought him nearer to Fremantle and his father. He stopped only when he could no longer hold the heavy shovel, and the fourth engineer, laughing, hustled him from the stifling stokehold into the not particularly fresh air of the engine room, which seemed to Dick an ozone bath by comparison.
The men made him free of their quarters, and spun him long yarns of the sea, more or less true, while they taught him intricacies of splicing and knotting that are generally hidden from the landsman. They made him highly technical in speech, so that he would have shuddered at calling the companion a staircase, or in misusing such ordinary expressions as "abaft the binnacle." He saw their dim and smellful sleeping accommodation, and came away with his small soul full of wrath that men so admirable should be herded in dens so uninviting. They took care of him in more ways than one; he saw a sturdy apprentice roundly cuffed on the head for having made some remark in his presence of which the older men did not approve. Dick had not caught the remark—which was as well. It made him rather uncomfortable to see the boy cuffed, but having great respect for the cuffer, a boatswain of wonderful ability where knots were concerned, he took it for granted that everything was all right. He told them stories of station life in return for their sea yarns, and altogether spent some of his happiest hours in the fo'c'sle.
The baggage officer took him into the upper hold and held forth learnedly on the art of handling cargo; the cook showed him the galley, with its rows of shining copper pots and pans, its contrivances for washing and peeling potatoes by the hundred, and other strange devices—which so enthralled Dick that he obtained permission to come again, and to bring his mother, who was no less interested than he. He even penetrated into the mysterious regions where the stewards lurk when off duty, and had no small hand in the fun behind the scenes, when the stewards gave a concert in aid of the funds for seamen—a Christy minstrel entertainment, at which the performers appeared with faces so well and truly blacked that for the remainder of the voyage they had a murky look sadly out of keeping with their otherwise spic and span appearance. But the crowning point of Dick's voyage was when the Captain found him on deck very early one morning—so early that no other passengers were astir, and, first swearing him to secrecy, took him to his state-room under the bridge where they hob-nobbed over an early cup of tea, and afterwards showed him chronometers and sextants, chart-room and navigating room, and the forbidden glory of the bridge itself; a condescension that left Dick gasping with delight and amazement. He did not know that the Captain had a little son in Perth; another boy with an eager face, for whose sake the great man had a soft corner in his heart for all small boys.
With so many distractions, it was natural that the days should fly quickly. But in addition there was the sea itself, which Dick loved; an Australian sea at its best, with bright sunshine, dancing blue water, and a long, easy swell that barely rocked theMoondarraas she steamed westward. They passed but few ships. A great English liner overtook them one morning, passing so close that greetings could be shouted from deck to deck; a P. and O. boat, her black and tan painting and her winking brasswork making her a heartsome sight. Beside her, theMoondarra, which had seemed to Dick enormous, became quite a small affair. The liner was outward bound, most of the people on her decks were Australians, off on the long trip to the old countries that every son and daughter of the Southern Cross longs to see some day. Once there passed another inter-state boat, like themselves; now and then a little tramp steamer, red with rust and generally grimy. And one day came the most beautiful sight of the sea, a great four-master, with every sail set, swinging by to Sydney for wheat. She came down towards them, until she was quite close—then, tacking suddenly, she swung away, the sunlight, as she went about, turning every sail to glittering silver. Dick had no breakfast that morning—he remained glued to the rail until the beautiful ship was only a tall shadow on the horizon.
At all odd moments during the day there were games; deck-tennis, bull-board, quoits, cricket. Dick was handicapped in being the only boy of his age on board, so that he found it hard to get a suitable partner, but some of the elder girls took him into their games, and on the whole he had a good time, though, to Dick, girls were curious beings, with mysterious and incomprehensible ways. He told his mother one day that he could not imagine why any fellow ever wanted to get married—"unless it was to you, of course," he added, gallantly. To which Mrs. Lester listened gravely, and did not even make the annoying rejoinder that some day he would think differently—to which species of remark grown-ups are so prone. Merle Warner remained the most incomprehensible female of all. Circumstances conspired to throw the two children together, for the elders quickly made friends; the Warners were pleasant, kindly people, and, as table companions, they were a good deal brought into association with Mrs. Lester. Mr. Warner and Dick had struck up a great friendship; the big man liked his small and unobtrusive cabin-mate and felt for him something of the protective feeling he would have experienced had it been his own little lad who lay asleep in the opposite bunk each night when he came to bed. They used to tramp the deck together in the early mornings and after dinner, and "yarn" of station matters, of the ways of bullocks—and most inexhaustible theme of all—of horses. Dick had been his father's constant companion until Mr. Lester sailed for England; he had learned a good deal of station affairs, and where his knowledge failed his love of the subject was enough to make him a good mate. He used to beg for stories of the Western life, that held so many differences from his own, and Mr. Warner was ready enough to tell of his early days, with their struggle and adventure. Dick thought him a very wonderful man. He told his stories very simply; they were, indeed, very commonplace happenings to him, and on the rare occasions that he became enthusiastic it was in speaking of the part his wife had played. "You take it from me, son, women are pretty wonderful," he said. "She's plump and placid and comfortable enough now—but I've seen her holding off a crew of yelling blacks with only an old shot gun. She never was afraid—or if she was, she never showed it; and that's the most wonderful of all." Dick agreed, and thereafter looked at Mrs. Warner with eyes of awe, which considerably puzzled the cheery, motherly woman.
Possibly it was her father's friendship for Dick that made Merle so definitely unfriendly. She was devoted to him; her mother and Bobby counted for something to her, but her father ranked before the whole world. It hit her hard to see him make a companion of this new boy. She was a child of a queer, silent nature—her own worst enemy, for she struggled against her better impulses. Something in her made her rude, unfriendly, unforgiving. So much was evident, and led to punishments and unpopularity. What was not so apparent was that the queer streak made her very unhappy as well. "I know jolly well I'm a pig," she had said once to her father, "only I don't seem to be able to be anything but a pig. Why do people get born like that?" To which Mr. Warner, not understanding in the least, had replied, laughing, that the sooner she left off being a pig the better for everyone. Merle knew that very well. But the bad fairy who had dealt her the wrong kind of temper at her christening was as yet too strong for her.
She could not make friends freely; not like Bobby, whom she sometimes almost hated for the ease with which he fell in love with everyone. Everyone liked Bobby, too. He was so merry, so full of quaint chatter, so ready to make the best of the world. Their trip to Sydney had been as complete joy to Bobby as it had meant misery to Merle. They had stayed with a big family of boy cousins; town boys, knowing nothing of the country that Merle loved, and wildly keen on swimming, yachting and school sports—all of them sealed books to Merle. Her shyness and sullenness had meant rare fun to them, and they had teased her with all the thoroughness of public school boys. She hated them all, with an intensity that almost frightened her; for their sake she was ready to hate all boys, and Dick was merely another member of the abhorred species. That her father should take to him instantly was almost more than she could bear.
Dick was civil to her, in his off-hand boy fashion. He was too busy and too happy to worry about a cross-grained little girl. If she had cared to be friendly he would have met her half-way, but as she showed him very definitely that she did not want him, he was quite willing to let her alone. It was sometimes a little awkward to be paired off with her—to have an elder say cheerfully, "Run away, Merle, and play with Dick." A ship, however, is a place of many corners, and after rounding the nearest it was an easy matter to go off in different directions. Merle would say, "I'm not comin' with you!" Dick would reply, "Right oh!" and that would end the matter.
"You know," Mrs. Lester said to Dick—they were talking in her cabin one evening—"I'm really sorry for that little girl. She gives herself such a bad time. And if she would only let herself be nice, she would be quite nice."
"You always think people are nice, mother-est," said Dick. He was lying on the spare bunk, his hands crossed under his head, glad to keep still after a hard set of tennis. "But why shouldn't she behave decently? No one does anything to annoy the poor thing!"
"N-no." Mrs. Lester hesitated; she did not choose to hint to Dick that Merle might be jealous. "I think she feels herself out in the cold—Bobby is so attractive, and everyone likes him, and of course she is different."
"She's a silly ass, then," said Dick, unexpectedly. "Nothing's wrong with her looks, is there, if only she didn't seem so jolly cross?"
"Why, no—nothing, of course," Mrs. Lester answered. A vision of Merle's face, square and defiant, came to her. "Only, of course, Bobby is such a friendly little man. I wish she would chum up with you, Dick. You wouldn't mind, would you?"
"Well, a fellow doesn't always want a girl at his heels," Dick said. "She's only a kid, too"—with the condescension that thirteen feels for eleven. "But, of course, she could come along if she liked—if you want her to, mother." He grinned all over his sunburnt face. "But what's the good of talking?—a team of bullocks wouldn't bring her!"
And that seemed so far beyond argument that Mrs. Lester held her peace.
Nevertheless, despite Merle's attitude, the friendship between the Warners and the Lesters flourished. Bobby frankly adored Dick, and as Dick didn't mind admitting that he "liked small kids," Bobby trotted at his heels and, if he could not actually be with him, remained glued to the spot if he could watch him playing games. Mrs. Warner, relieved from a good deal of attendance on her small son, found Mrs. Lester a congenial spirit; the Lester deck-chairs were pitched near the Warner encampment, in a sheltered angle of the deck, and they grew to know each other with the swiftness of board-ship friendships—a week at sea having the curious faculty of making perfect strangers better acquaintances than if they had lived in the same township for a year. Mr. Warner hovered about like a large guardian angel, glad to see his wife enjoying the most restful portion of her trip. Even Merle fell a little under the spell of Mrs. Lester's charm. She was so used to people who found fault with her that it was almost amazing to know someone who never seemed to notice bad temper or black looks. Mrs. Lester's attitude was that no one—not even Merle—could possibly mean to be rude or unpleasant. It somehow made Merle feel that rudeness and unpleasantness were cheap and nasty.
Their fellow passengers were, on the whole, a pleasant set. Miss Simpson and the "dear bishop's" wife were apt to be a little overpowering; the bishop himself made elephantine efforts at being jolly, because of a peculiar belief that only by so doing could he succeed in understanding Australians, and thereby puzzled very much the Australians themselves, who liked him far better on the rare occasions when he forgot to be playful and was just plain bishop. There was enough musical talent on board to provide excellent concerts each evening, after which energetic people danced on the deck until an unfeeling quarter-master came along relentlessly to extinguish the lights. The captain and his officers made friends with everyone and kept things moving with the quiet tact that seems part of the training of a passenger boat's officers—and answered questions innumerable concerning the ways of theMoondarraand the wonders of the deep, such questions being an unfailing part of the routine of each voyage. So the quiet days passed swiftly enough, too swiftly for Dick, who, but that Fremantle meant his father, would willingly have had it twice as far away.
He came on deck one afternoon, after an hour spent in the fo'c'sle; it was their last day at sea, and he had been saying good-bye to his friend the boatswain, who had presented him with a marvellous trophy—a full-rigged ship, built in the most astounding fashion, inside a bottle. Dick had inspected this curiosity with bewildered awe, never dreaming that it might actually become his own; and when the boatswain gave it to him as a farewell gift he was speechless with gratitude. He carried it carefully to his cabin, and stowed it away. Then he ran up in search of his mother.
He came out on the starboard side, where a keen wind whistled that had driven nearly everyone away in search of shelter on the port deck. The only people in view were Bobby Warner and Miss Simpson; and it was evident that Bobby was very naughty. He was perched on the top of the rail, holding lightly to a stanchion, his handsome little face glowing with delighted mischief. Miss Simpson—who had the faculty of arousing all that was worst in him—was lecturing him severely.
"Are you not ashamed, Bobby? Come down at once, you naughty little boy!"
"S'an't," said Bobby calmly.
"Come down, or I shall bring your father to whip you."
"He won't," said Bobby, unmoved. "He never does."
"So I should think," said Miss Simpson, with bitterness. "It is high time he began. Come down immediately."
"You go 'way, ole fing," Bobby said, unmoved. "Don't like you."
"No one likes naughty boys like you," returned the lady, severely, "Will you come down, or must I pull you down?"
"Don't 'oo touch me," said Bobby, meeting her eyes fearlessly, as she stood angry and irresolute. "Dis is my pony—I'm goin' to ride it."
He threw one leg over the rail as he spoke, balancing his slender body easily. Miss Simpson uttered a muffled shriek, and sprang to hold him, gripping at his knee.
"'Oo get away!" Bobby threatened. He twisted himself from her grasp, bending outwards, just as Dick came upon the scene. Dick gave a low whistle.
"Come down out of that, Bob, you silly ass!"
Bobby started at the voice. Simultaneously the ship rolled, and then a shriek from Miss Simpson rent the air and she clutched at him unavailingly as he lost his balance and fell. The list of the ship sent him clear of her, down to the lazy green swell, flecked with foam from the bow. He gave one cry—a frightened baby's scream for help. The water choked it almost unheard.
Dick did not hesitate. He reflected afterwards with shame that he did not even shout, "Man overboard!" as do all well-conducted rescuers; instead he gave an incoherent cry of, "Coming, old chap!" as he swung himself up by the stanchion and dived outwards. It did not seem far—he had often dived from the top of the gallery round the swimming baths near his school. What he was not prepared for was the icy coldness of the water. It caught his breath—he came up blinded and gasping, unable for a second to see anything. Then, just as despair seized him, he caught sight of a white jersey a few yards away on the crest of a wave, and flung himself through the water towards it. His fingers closed on it, and the wave swallowed them both.
They came up again after what seemed an eternity. Dick's head was bursting, and his whole body numb. Mechanically his training in life-saving came back to him, and he turned on his back, still gripping Bobby, from whose little body the breath had been knocked so effectually by the fall that he was merely a log in the water, unable to struggle. It was as well for Dick, for there was no fight left in him. The icy water chilled him, body and soul; he could only keep afloat, with his fingers twisted into Bobby's jersey. His mother's face seemed to float before his tired eyes.
Back on theMoondarraMiss Simpson's despairing shrieks had been drowned by the long hoot of the steamer's siren. The officer on duty on the bridge had seen Dick's dive; almost before he had struck the water the steamer's engines were reversed, life-belts had gone skimming overboard, and a boat's crew was working desperately at the davits swinging the boat outboard. Quicker still two others had flung themselves after the boys—Dick's friend, the boatswain, and the thin, silent man who sat at their table. It was he who reached them first; his voice came to Dick as though muffled in wool, like the voice of a person very far away.
"Keep still, old chap; I'll take the kid."
Bobby's weight was lifted, but Dick could not detach his clutching fingers from his jersey. He saw, as in a mist, a face near him in the water, but the cruel cold held him, choked him, gripped his very heart. He moved his free hand feebly, resisting, as he knew he must, an overpowering instinct to grasp at the new-comer. Another voice came, even further away.
"I can manage this one," it said. There was comfort in that, since Dick knew he could not manage anything more. The waves seemed to be swinging him in a great cold bed—up and down, up and down. A hand was under his head, more restful than the softest pillow he had ever known; he let himself sink back with a little sigh, just as the blue sky above him flickered suddenly and turned black. Close, very close, was the sound of oars working furiously in rowlocks, but he did not hear them.
TheMoondarrawas turning in a great circle, her railing black with people. Women were clustering round the two mothers, who stood silently watching the sea that was fighting out beyond for the little lives; and there were men holding back Mr. Warner, who could swim scarcely at all, but had been in the very act of flinging himself over the rail when an officer caught him. "If Flanagin and the other fellow can't get them, no one can," the crisp voice said. "You'll only complicate matters if you go in." And after that Bobby's father stood still, gripping at the rail, not feeling the hands that held him mechanically.
The long moments dragged themselves away—how long they seemed, first from the time that the two little heads had been a tiny speck together on the sea, and then until the other heads and the long, clean overarm strokes had forged through the water towards them! Then, longest of all came the terse waiting while the boat, lowered with swift dexterity, reached the water—the waiting oars ready to pull the instant she touched—the straining muscles flinging themselves into each stroke that sent her flying across the long green swells. A sudden, broken cheer came from the ship, mingled with a woman's sobbing cry.
"Oh, they have them, they have them!"
The two mothers, silent yet, caught at each other's hands. Beyond, strong arms were lifting the boys together into the boat; then, strain their eyes as they might, they could see nothing, for two sailors were working over the little figures, wrapping them in rugs; they had to loosen Dick's fingers by force from Bobby's jersey. Others were hauling the rescuers on board, the boat turning even as they were pulled in; and then she came racing back to the ship. On the bridge the captain glanced at his watch, with a flash of professional pride.
"Seven minutes from the time of the alarm—not bad going!" he said.
The cheering broke out again as the boat swung alongside, and then died out uncertainly. Was it a time to cheer? The little muffled figures lay still and stiff, white faces upturned to the towering ship. Mr. Warner's heart seemed to stand still as the doctor suddenly tapped him on the shoulder.
"Bring your wife and Mrs. Lester to the hospital," he said. "I have everything ready."
A hush seemed to fall upon the ship, long after the boat had been hauled slowly upwards, and waiting arms had received the motionless bundles and borne them swiftly to the hospital. The steady beat of the re-awakened engines bore theMoondarrawestward; but on the decks passengers stood about in little knots, with their eyes ever wandering to the doorway behind which the dripping procession had disappeared. The captain came out once, shaking his head at the eager inquiries.
"Both unconscious," he said. "I'm afraid——" and stopped.
There was a sick hush on the decks as the Bishop—no longer playful—came forward, holding up his hand for silence.
"If you will come with me to the saloon," he said, "we can do our best for the children. They need our prayers."
The people flocked after him—card-playing men and half-grown girls, and women who sobbed as they went. There were sobs round the saloon as the Bishop prayed—simple, manly words that asked for help and mercy. He finished, and there was silence, and then a cheer from the deck and a steward burst in.
"Doctor says they're all right!"
In the sick bay, Mrs. Warner held Bobby to her like a baby—a bundle of hot blankets, in which his sleeping face nestled peacefully. Dick lay in a cot, also a mound of blankets. He opened his eyes and a smile flickered weakly on his lips as he saw his mother's face.
"Mother-est!" he whispered.
She put her head down beside him, trembling—one arm across him, holding him to her. He gave a half sigh of utter contentment, nestling to her, as he fell asleep.
It was many hours later that Dick woke up, at an unfamiliar noise, feeling stiff and tired and extremely puzzled as to where he was. Bobby, who had awakened him with a dismal little howl, was sitting up in his cot. The two mothers had been dragged away to dinner by the doctor, who had brutally remarked that the boys would sleep just as well if they didn't sit and stare at them, with other wise observations as to the necessity of over-strained people taking nourishment. The steward, who had been left on guard at the hospital, was gossiping placidly outside on the deck.
Dick regarded Bobby sleepily.
"Hullo, kid," he said. "Don't howl."
"Isn't howlin'," returned Bobby, untruthfully. "Wants my muvver." His lips quivered. "I tumbled into the water," he said, his blue eyes suddenly misty.
"So you did," said Dick, memory coming back to him. "Weren't you an ass? Never mind, you got out all right."
"It wasn't nice," said Bobby, miserably. The eyes brimmed over. "Don't like this funny place. Want to come an' 'nuggle on your bed."
"Come on, then," Dick said.
Bobby made an effort to clamber out, but relapsed into his blankets.
"My legs is all funny and horrid," he said. "They—they won't work." Tears were in his voice. "Wants to 'nuggle wiv you—wants my muvver!"
"Well, you stay there—I'll come," Dick said, hurriedly.
He climbed out, realising fully the moment he moved Bobby's accusation against his legs. His own felt as though they belonged to someone entirely different—Mr. Warner for choice, for they felt enormous. He found himself glad to hold on to the cot after he was on the floor, and his progress across to Bobby was slow and painful.
"What's the matter?" Bobby asked. "Is your legs funny, too?"
"Jolly funny," Dick returned. He climbed in beside the tearful Bobby, who clung to him vehemently—and somehow Dick was not sorry for the warm, comforting touch. He was desperately stiff and weary; he, also, wanted his mother every bit as much as the small boy who snuggled against him. He put his arm round him.
"Just you go to sleep, old chap," he said—and in a moment followed his own advice.
"Ain't never stirred, mum," was the calm assurance of the steward at the door, ten minutes later, when the anxious mothers came hurrying back from dinner. "I been sittin' in there near 'em—they——"
His jaw dropped and the mothers gave a stifled exclamation at sight of the two heads on Bobby's pillow—both boys fast asleep. The steward, when taken outside for purposes of discussion, found difficulty in inventing a suitable explanation, cut short by the arrival of the doctor, who remarked that he would attend to him later, and went to inspect the patients.
"Well, they're all right, anyhow," he said. "But I'd like to know how young Dick felt on his journey across."
It was a journey of which Dick had no recollection when he woke for the second time, four hours later; and he was sufficiently astonished at finding Bobby beside him. The mothers were close by; at Dick's first movement Mrs. Lester came swiftly to the side of the cot. Presently, just as Bobby too awoke, came the doctor; and close on his heels, the repentant steward, bearing hot soup, which seemed to the boys the most heavenly thing they had ever tasted. They ate it, and asked for more, and would have made a gallant effort at that, too, had not sleep overcome them again. Bobby tumbled asleep almost over his bowl, and his father, coming in, carried him off to his mother's cabin; and presently, just as Dick was settling to a dream, the big man was back, and this time it was Dick whom he picked up like a baby and carried down the long alleyways; not to their own cabin, but to the spare bunk in Mrs. Lester's, which had been made ready for Dick. She was waiting for him, ready to tuck him up. It was comforting to think she would be near him. He was very sleepy—too sleepy to do more than wonder when, as he put him down, Bobby's father said, huskily, "God bless you, old chap," and brushed his forehead with his lips—and then went hurriedly out.
It was all like a dream when Dick woke next day, still a little stiff, but otherwise feeling his usual self. Mrs. Lester was asleep, which was not unnatural, seeing that she had been up at ten-minute intervals throughout the night, to bend over him and make sure that he was still breathing. He got up softly, and slipped out for his bath; somewhat embarrassed, on his return, by the necessity for hunting out fresh clothing in his own cabin—though he had long ceased to have any fear of waking Mr. Warner, which, indeed, was a task beyond the average small boy. He managed to get dressed at last, and went up on deck.
A steward gave him tea, and asked feelingly "how he was keeping?" A quarter-master came over to him and inquired, "All right, this morning, after your swim?" The third officer, very busy with landing preparations, tossed him a greeting across the deck, and asked if he thought the water would be nice for bathing. Dick began to feel rather hot, and moved away to another part of the deck, where there might be people who had failed to notice yesterday's adventure. There, however, he met the captain, who patted him on the head, and said, "Good kid; where did you pick up high diving?" and just after he had escaped from this encounter, who should come along, stately and tall, but the Bishop's wife, who made a kind of run at him, grasped his hands, and said, "My child, how can we express our feelings of gratitude and admiration?" which so terrified Dick that he broke away without ceremony, and, muttering something incoherent, fled as he would never have fled from the most infuriated bullock. He went round a deck house at a run, and cannoned into Merle Warner, who scowled and said, exactly as she had said on the first morning at sea, "Can't you look where you're going, silly?"
Dick burst out laughing.
"I wish you'd say that again," he said.
"Why?" demanded Merle, blankly.
"'Cause it sounded quite decent. Everybody else on this blessed ship is talking such bosh!"
"What sort of bosh?"
Dick turned red.
"Oh, nothing," he said. There was a moment's pause, and then Merle flushed in her turn.
"I say—thanks for goin' in after Bobby," she said awkwardly.
Dick gave a kind of howl of disgust.
"Oh, you, too!" he cried. "I say, do chuck it. If you knew how sick I am of hearing about it!"
"Oh, all right," said Merle, plainly comprehending this point of view, and relieved to find that no more politeness was expected of her. Somewhat to her surprise, however, she found herself making further conversation:
"You glad we're gettin' in to-day?"
"Oh, rather!" Dick's face suddenly lit up. "I like the ship—but I'm awfully keen to see father."
"Whose father?"
"Mine, of course. He's coming out from England—we're going to meet him at Fremantle."
"Oh, I didn't know," Merle said. "Has he been long away?
"Over a year," Dick said. "Seems about ten."
"A year!" Merle's eyes grew round. Life without a father seemed an impossible thing.
"'M," Dick nodded. "It's been jolly nice to be with your father on this ship. A fellow misses his father a bit, I can tell you."
"'Spect you do," Merle said. "When's yours coming?"
"To-morrow, some time, his boat gets in," Dick answered. "He's on theOhio." His eyes were dancing; somehow, as Merle met their glance, she smiled in spite of herself. "I guess mother and I will be on the old pier pretty early."
There was a moment's pause, while they looked at each other like two awkward young puppies.
"I better go an' see if mother wants me," Merle said at length.
"Right oh!" Dick answered with alacrity.
They parted with a glance that, at any rate, was semi-friendly. Merle went away with a feeling that she had been, as usual, a pig. She had been grudging her father, for a few days, to a boy who had not seen his own father for over a year—twelve whole months! It was a bit low down. And on top of this, he must go into the sea after Bobby, which made her feel more of a pig than ever, especially as he did not seem inclined to make a fuss about it. Merle was accustomed to put an end to such uncomfortable thoughts by shrugging her shoulders and reflecting that, after all, no one expected her to be anything but a pig, so what did it matter? But this time she found herself unexpectedly troubled about it.
Dick made his way swiftly to the companion, in the vain hope of eluding his fellow-passengers. But the ship was getting up for breakfast—everyone was coming on deck, or going along the alleyways in search of baths, and he met a string of inquiries, congratulations and compliments that reduced him to the lowest pitch of shy discomfort. The Bishop, extraordinarily human in pyjamas and a short dressing-gown, patted him on the back and said, "Feel all right, old man?" which was easier to bear than most of the greetings. But the flappers fairly oozed over him, the men pumped his hand, while he tried vainly to edge past them, and Miss Simpson, holding him tightly by the arm, made him a speech, in which Dick vaguely recognised quotations from the prayer book. He escaped, scarlet cheeked, and ran with his head down, darting round the corner towards his own cabin, and there ran into Mrs. Warner, who said nothing at all, but only looked at him piteously, with her mouth trembling, just as Bobby's had trembled the night before, and then put out her hands to him suddenly and kissed him. Somehow, to his own astonishment, Dick did not mind it at all. He found himself patting her very hard, and saying, "Never you mind, he's all right." He felt so terribly sorry for her that he forgot all about himself, and they went to breakfast with Mrs. Lester, while Mr. Warner remained with Bobby, whose legs were still refusing duty, though his appetite was unimpaired.
Land was in sight—the coast of Western Australia, and there was much bustle of packing and preparing to leave the ship.
"It isn't a very interesting-looking coast," Mrs. Warner said, looking at the low line of sandy hills. "But I remember what it meant to me when I came back from two years in England when I was nineteen. I had been desperately home sick all those two years, and when at last the homeward voyage was nearly over it almost seemed to kill me with joy. I couldn't sleep the night before, and I got up before dawn to see the land—it was like heaven, as it came slowly out of the mist. West Australia!"
"But you weren't a 'sand groper' yourself?" said the doctor.
"Oh no; I was a Sydneysider. But you don't worry about inter-state differences when you're coming home—Australia is all that matters."
"I wonder if father's thinking that," Dick said.
"Most certainly—as you're going to meet him at Fremantle!" said the doctor, laughing. "Otherwise I fancy he'd be stretching out his neck towards Port Phillip Bay, and regarding anything between as an annoying interlude."
"Well—that may be," admitted Mrs. Lester demurely. "Come on, Dickie, we must finish our packing."
TheMoondarraslipped quietly into Fremantle Harbour while they were still in their cabins; Dick's first intimation of the fact being a shadow across the port-hole as a yacht's tall masts slipped by, followed by the blackened smoke stack of a collier. He jumped up on his bunk to peer out. The land was very close; a confused jumble of uninteresting red-brick houses met his eyes, and a mass of shipping of all sorts and sizes. The western sea gate of Australia is busy, but unbeautiful. Dick remarked, "H'm—about up to Port Melbourne!" and got down again to finish locking a suit-case.
"Can I help you, Dick? We're nearly in."
"Just finished, mother, thanks. Did the steward strap up your trunks?"
"He's doing them now. Dick, I have been talking to Mr. Warner; they are going to an hotel in Perth, and he suggests that we should go there too; it is the best, he says."
"Right oh, mother. And where's Perth?"
"What do I send you to school for?" demanded Mrs. Lester laughing.
"Oh, I know it's on the Swan," said Dick, grinning in his turn. "But is it far?"
"Only a few miles. Mr. Warner advises us to go up by motor."
"That would be jolly!" Dick exclaimed. "I say, mother—can we go to the Orient office and ask about father's boat?"
"We'll go there at once," said Mrs. Lester. "Dick, are you sure you feel all right?"
"Right as pie," Dick answered, unpoetically. "Don't you worry about me, old mother." He got up, putting his arm into hers. "Come on deck and see new things."
There was not much new, save that anything is a change to eyes that for several days have seen nothing but sea and sky. TheMoondarrawas slowly warping into the wharf, amidst a mass of shipping. A knot of interested people stood watching her come, some of them exchanging signals with her passengers; but the centre of attraction, ashore and afloat, was the big P. and O. liner that had passed them in the Bight. She was on the point of sailing, her gangways already drawn up; and a big crowd was watching her go. Somewhere a band was playing "Auld Lang Syne"; the sweet notes came dreamily across the water. Slowly she drew out from the pier. There were confused sounds—shouts of farewell, cheering, long coo-ees shrilling a last Australian call. Her wash set theMoondarrarocking.
"Isn't she splendid!" Dick breathed.
She was very splendid, as she moved slowly out past the breakwater, fronting the wide sweep of western seas that tossed between her and the old world whither she was bound. A German submarine was to send her to the bottom years later—without warning, leaving her freight of helpless souls to the mercy of an angry sea. But the veil of the future was drawn yet: stately and secure, the great ship went out, scarcely rocking to the great ocean swells that rolled in to meet her. The cheering and the long cries of farewell died away.
Simultaneously the gangway of theMoondarrawent down, and people poured on board, friends meeting passengers, hotel and motor touts, carriers, shipping agents. Mr. Warner's deep voice boomed behind the Lesters.
"Been looking for you," he said. "Not in a hurry, are you? It's pleasanter to wait until the first rush has gone. Then I can get you a good car from an hotel if you like."
Mrs. Lester thanked him, and they stood chatting until Merle arrived to say that Bobby was ready. His father disappeared hastily, presently returning, carrying his small son, whose extremely cheerful face showed only amusement at being unable to walk. Mrs. Warner followed. They deposited Bobby in a deck-chair, and smiled down at him.
"How are the legs now, Bobby?" Mrs. Lester
"They's nearly all right, only they wobbles," said Bobby. "Doctor says they'll stop wobbling to-morrow." He grinned delightedly. "I is just awful funny when I tries to walk!"
"He is too," echoed his father, laughing. "He'd make his fortune in a circus. Bobby, man, do you see we're nearly home?"
"'M," nodded Bobby. "Where's the twinses?"
"Oh, we'll get the twinses soon—Grannie has them."
"And when do we go to own-truly home?"
"In a few days. Will you be glad, old son?"
"Wather!" said Bobby. "Micky's there!"
"And when he gets on Micky's back nothing else in the world matters," said his mother, with a half sigh. "I sometimes wonder if either of the twinses will be domesticated—there's no sign of my two eldest being anything but stock riders!"
The crowd on the ship had almost cleared away, swallowed up by motors and cabs, and the business of unloading cargo was beginning, with its rattle of cranes and winches.
"Well there'll soon be too much noise here to be pleasant," said Mr. Warner. "Are you ready, Mrs. Lester? Shall I go after cars?"
"Quite ready—my luggage is all on deck," she told him.
"Then, come on, Dick, and we'll go car hunting."
They went together down the gangway—there was a new stab of the old jealous pain in Merle's heart as she watched them go. Mrs. Lester called her to her side with a question about Fremantle—her keen eyes had noticed the shadow on the little girl's face.
"I am shockingly ignorant of this part of the world," she said, laughing. "You are an old inhabitant, so you must tell me all about it"; and she kept her near, making her talk, until Merle had forgotten her troubles.