Chapter Nine.The Whole Yard was Ablaze and Burning Fiercely.One year is but a brief span in the history of a family, yet it may bring many changes. It did to Burley Old Farm, and some of them were sad enough, though some were glad. A glad change took place for instance in the early spring, after Bob’s departure; for Rupert appeared to wax stronger and stronger with the lengthening days; and when Uncle Ramsay, in a letter received one morning, announced his intention of coming from London, and making quite a long stay at Burley, Rupert declared his intention of mounting Scallowa, and riding over to the station to meet him. And the boy was as good as his word. In order that they might be both cavaliers together, Uncle Ramsay hired a horse at D—, and the two rode joyfully home side by side.His mother did not like to see that carmine flush on Rupert’s cheeks, however, nor the extra dark sparkle in his eyes when he entered the parlour to announce his uncle’s arrival, but she said nothing.Uncle Ramsay Broadbent was a brother of the Squire, and, though considerably older, a good deal like him in all his ways. There was the same dash and go in him, and the same smiling front, unlikely to be dismayed by any amount of misfortune.“There are a deal of ups and downs in the ocean of life,” Archie heard him say one day; “we’re on the top of a big wave one hour, and in the trough of the sea next, so we must take things as they come.”Yes, this uncle was a seafarer; the skipper of a sturdy merchantman that he had sailed in for ten long years. He did not care to be called captain by anyone. He was a master mariner, and had an opinion, which he often expressed, that plain “Mr” was a gentleman’s prefix.“I shan’t go back to sea again,” he said next morning at breakfast.“Fact is, brother, my owners think I’m getting too old. And maybe they’re right. I’ve had a fair innings, and it is only fair to give the young ones a chance.”Uncle Ramsay seemed to give new life and soul to the old place. He settled completely down to the Burley style of life long before the summer was half over. He joined the servants in the fields, and worked with them as did the Squire, Walton, and Archie. And though more merriment went on in consequence, there was nevertheless more work done. He took an interest in all the boys’ “fads,” spent hours with them in their workshop, and made one in every game that was played on the grass. He was dreadfully awkward at cricket and tennis however; for such games as these are but little practised by sailors. Only he was right willing to learn.There was a youthfulness and breeziness about Uncle Ramsay’s every action, that few save seafarers possess when hair is turning white. Of course, the skipper spent many a jolly hour up in the room of the Castle Tower, and he did not object either to the presence of old Kate in the chair. He listened like a boy when she told her weird stories; and he listened more like a baby than anything else when Branson played his fiddle.Then he himself would spin them a yarn, and hold them all enthralled, especially big-eyed Elsie, with the sterling reality and graphicness of the narrative.When Uncle Ramsay spoke you could see the waves in motion, hear the scream of the birds around the stern, or the wind roaring through the rigging. He spoke as he thought; he painted from life.Well, the arrival of Uncle Ramsay and Rupert’s getting strong were two of the pleasant changes that took place at Burley in this eventful year. Alas! I have to chronicle the sad ones also. Yet why sigh? To use Uncle Ramsay’s own words, “You never know what a ship is made of until stormy seas are around you.”First then came a bad harvest—a terribly bad harvest. It was not that the crops themselves were so very light, but the weather was cold and wet; the grain took long to ripen. The task of cutting it down was unfortunately an easy one, but the getting it stored was almost an impossibility. At the very time when it was ripe, and after a single fiercely hot day, a thunder-storm came on, and with it such hail as the oldest inhabitant in the parish could not remember having seen equalled. This resulted in the total loss of far more of the precious seed, than would have sown all the land of Burley twice over.The wet continued. It rained and rained every day, and when it rained it poured.The Squire had heard of a Yankee invention for drying wheat under cover, and rashly set about a rude but most expensive imitation thereof. He first mentioned the matter to Uncle Ramsay at the breakfast-table. The Squire seemed in excellent spirits that morning. He was walking briskly up and down the room rubbing his hands, as if in deep but pleasant thought, when his brother came quietly in.“Hullo! you lazy old sea-dog. Why you’d lie in your bed till the sun burned a hole in the blanket. Now just look at me.”“I’m just looking at you.”“Well, I’ve been up for hours. I’m as hungry as a Caithness Highlander. And I’ve got an idea.”“I thought there was something in the wind.”“Guess.”“Guess, indeed! Goodness forbid I should try. But I say, brother,” continued Uncle Ramsay, laughing, “couldn’t you manage to fall asleep somewhere out of doors, like the man in the story, and wake up and find yourself a king? My stars, wouldn’t we have reforms as long as your reign lasted! The breakfast, Mary? Ah, that’s the style!”“You won’t be serious and listen, I suppose, Ramsay.”“Oh, yes; I will.”“Well, the Americans—”“The Americans again; but go on.”“The Americans, in some parts where I’ve been, wouldn’t lose a straw in a bad season. It is all done by means of great fanners and heated air, you know. Now, I’m going to show these honest Northumbrian farmers a thing or two. I—”“I say, brother, hadn’t you better trust to Providence, and wait for a fair wind?”“Now, Ramsay, that’s where you and I differ. You’re a slow Moses. I want to move ahead a trifle in front of the times. I’ve been looking all over the dictionary of my daily life, and I can’t find such a word as ‘wait’ in it.”“Let me give you some of this steak, brother.”“My plan of operations, Ramsay, is—”“Why,” said Mrs Broadbent, “you haven’t eaten anything yet!”“I thought,” said Uncle Ramsay, “you were as hungry as a Tipperary Highlander, or some such animal.”“My plan, Ramsay, is—” etc, etc.The two “etc, etc’s” in the last line stand for all the rest of the honest Squire’s speech, which, as his sailor brother said, was as long as the logline. But for all his hunger he made but a poor breakfast, and immediately after he jumped up and hurried away to the barn-yards.It was a busy time for the next two weeks at Burley Old Farm, but, to the Squire’s credit be it said, he was pretty successful with his strange operation of drying wheat independent of the sun. His ricks were built, and he was happy—happy as long as he thought nothing about the expense. But he did take an hour or two one evening to run through accounts, as he called it. Uncle Ramsay was with him.“Why, brother,” said Ramsay, looking very serious now indeed, “you are terribly down to leeward—awfully out of pocket!”“Ah! never mind, Ramsay. One can’t keep ahead of the times now-a-days, you know, without spending a little.”“Spending a little! Where are your other books? Mr Walton and I will have a look through them to-night, if you don’t mind.”“Not a bit, brother, not a bit. We’re going to give a dance to-morrow night to the servants, so if you like to bother with the book-work I’ll attend to the terpsichorean kick up.”Mr Walton and Uncle Ramsay had a snack in the office that evening instead of coming up to supper, and when Mrs Broadbent looked in to say good-night she found them both quiet and hard at work.“I say, Walton,” said Uncle Ramsay some time after, “this is serious. Draw near the fire and let us have a talk.”“It is sad as well as serious,” said Walton.“Had you any idea of it?”“Not the slightest. In fact I’m to blame, I think, for not seeing to the books before. But the Squire—”Walton hesitated.“I know my brother well,” said Ramsay. “As good a fellow as ever lived, but as headstrong as a nor’-easter. And now he has been spending money on machinery to the tune of some ten thousand pounds. He has been growing crop after crop of wheat as if he lived on the prairies and the land was new; and he has really been putting as much down in seed, labour, and fashionable manures as he has taken off.”“Yet,” said Walton, “he is no fool.”“No, not he; he is clever, too much so. But heaven send his pride, honest though it be, does not result in a fall.”The two sat till long past twelve talking and planning, then they opened the casement and walked out on to the lawn. It was a lovely autumn night. The broad, round moon was high in the heavens, fighting its way through a sky of curdling clouds which greatly detracted from its radiance.“Look, Walton,” said the sailor, “to windward; yonder it is all blue sky, by-and-by it will be a bright and lovely night.”“By-and-by. Yes,” sighed Walton.“But see! What is that down yonder rising white over the trees? Smoke! Why, Walton, the barn-yards are all on fire!”Almost at the same moment Branson rushed upon the scene.“Glad you’re up, gentlemen,” he gasped. “Wake the Squire. The servants are all astir. We must save the beasts, come of everything else what will.”The farm-steading of Burley was built in the usual square formation round a centre straw-yard, which even in winter was always kept so well filled that beasts might lie out all night. To the north were the stacks, and it was here the fire originated, and unluckily the wind blew from that direction. It was by no means high; but fire makes its own wind, and in less than half an hour the whole yard was ablaze and burning fiercely, while the byres, stables, and barns had all caught. From the very first these latter had been enveloped in dense rolling clouds of smoke, and sparks as thick as falling snowflakes, so that to save any of the live stock seemed almost an impossibility.With all his mania for machinery, and for improvements of every kind possible to apply to agriculture, it is indeed a wonder that the Squire had not established a fire brigade on his farm. But fire was an eventuality which he had entirely left out of his reckoning, and now there was really no means of checking the terrible conflagration.As soon as the alarm was given every one did what he could to save the live stock; but the smoke was blinding, maddening, and little could be done save taking the doors off their hinges.Who knows what prodigies of valour were performed that night by the humble cowmen even, in their attempts to drive the oxen and cows out, and away to a place of safety? In some instances, when they had nearly succeeded, the cattle blocked the doorways, or, having got out to the straw-yard, charged madly back again, and prevented the exit of their fellows. Thus several servants ran terrible risks to their lives.They were more successful in saving the horses, and this was greatly owing to Archie’s presence of mind. He had dashed madly into the stable for his pet Scallowa. The Shetland pony had never looked more wild before. He sniffed the danger, he snorted and reared. All at once it occurred to Archie to mount and ride him out. No sooner had he got on his back than he came forth like a lamb. He took him to a field and let him free, and as he was hurrying back he met little Peter.“Come, Peter, come,” he cried; “we can save the horses.”The two of them rushed to the stable, and horse after horse was bridled and mounted by little Peter and ridden out.But a fearful hitch occurred. Tell, the Squire’s hunter, backed against the stable door and closed it, thus imprisoning Archie, who found it impossible to open the door.The roof had already caught. The horses were screaming in terror, and rearing wildly against the walls.Peter rushed away to seek assistance. He met Branson, and in a word or two told him what had happened.Luckily axes were at hand, and sturdy volunteers speedily smashed the door in, and poor Archie, more dead than alive, with torn clothes and bleeding face, was dragged through.The scene after this must be left to imagination. But the Squire reverently and fervently thanked God when the shrieks of those fire-imprisoned cattle were hushed in death, and nothing was to be heard save the crackle and roar of the flames.The fire had lit up the countryside for miles around. The moonlight itself was bright, but within a certain radius the blazing farm cast shadows against it.Next morning stackyards, barn-yards, farm-steading, machinery-house, and everything pertaining to Burley Old Farm, presented but a smouldering, blackened heap of ruins.Squire Broadbent entertained his poor, frightened people to an early breakfast in the servants’ hall, and the most cheerful face there was that of the Squire. Here is his little speech:“My good folks, sit down and eat; and let us be thankful we’re all here, and that no human lives are lost. My good kinswoman Kate here will tell you that there never yet was an ill but there might be a worse. Let us pray the worse may never come.”
One year is but a brief span in the history of a family, yet it may bring many changes. It did to Burley Old Farm, and some of them were sad enough, though some were glad. A glad change took place for instance in the early spring, after Bob’s departure; for Rupert appeared to wax stronger and stronger with the lengthening days; and when Uncle Ramsay, in a letter received one morning, announced his intention of coming from London, and making quite a long stay at Burley, Rupert declared his intention of mounting Scallowa, and riding over to the station to meet him. And the boy was as good as his word. In order that they might be both cavaliers together, Uncle Ramsay hired a horse at D—, and the two rode joyfully home side by side.
His mother did not like to see that carmine flush on Rupert’s cheeks, however, nor the extra dark sparkle in his eyes when he entered the parlour to announce his uncle’s arrival, but she said nothing.
Uncle Ramsay Broadbent was a brother of the Squire, and, though considerably older, a good deal like him in all his ways. There was the same dash and go in him, and the same smiling front, unlikely to be dismayed by any amount of misfortune.
“There are a deal of ups and downs in the ocean of life,” Archie heard him say one day; “we’re on the top of a big wave one hour, and in the trough of the sea next, so we must take things as they come.”
Yes, this uncle was a seafarer; the skipper of a sturdy merchantman that he had sailed in for ten long years. He did not care to be called captain by anyone. He was a master mariner, and had an opinion, which he often expressed, that plain “Mr” was a gentleman’s prefix.
“I shan’t go back to sea again,” he said next morning at breakfast.
“Fact is, brother, my owners think I’m getting too old. And maybe they’re right. I’ve had a fair innings, and it is only fair to give the young ones a chance.”
Uncle Ramsay seemed to give new life and soul to the old place. He settled completely down to the Burley style of life long before the summer was half over. He joined the servants in the fields, and worked with them as did the Squire, Walton, and Archie. And though more merriment went on in consequence, there was nevertheless more work done. He took an interest in all the boys’ “fads,” spent hours with them in their workshop, and made one in every game that was played on the grass. He was dreadfully awkward at cricket and tennis however; for such games as these are but little practised by sailors. Only he was right willing to learn.
There was a youthfulness and breeziness about Uncle Ramsay’s every action, that few save seafarers possess when hair is turning white. Of course, the skipper spent many a jolly hour up in the room of the Castle Tower, and he did not object either to the presence of old Kate in the chair. He listened like a boy when she told her weird stories; and he listened more like a baby than anything else when Branson played his fiddle.
Then he himself would spin them a yarn, and hold them all enthralled, especially big-eyed Elsie, with the sterling reality and graphicness of the narrative.
When Uncle Ramsay spoke you could see the waves in motion, hear the scream of the birds around the stern, or the wind roaring through the rigging. He spoke as he thought; he painted from life.
Well, the arrival of Uncle Ramsay and Rupert’s getting strong were two of the pleasant changes that took place at Burley in this eventful year. Alas! I have to chronicle the sad ones also. Yet why sigh? To use Uncle Ramsay’s own words, “You never know what a ship is made of until stormy seas are around you.”
First then came a bad harvest—a terribly bad harvest. It was not that the crops themselves were so very light, but the weather was cold and wet; the grain took long to ripen. The task of cutting it down was unfortunately an easy one, but the getting it stored was almost an impossibility. At the very time when it was ripe, and after a single fiercely hot day, a thunder-storm came on, and with it such hail as the oldest inhabitant in the parish could not remember having seen equalled. This resulted in the total loss of far more of the precious seed, than would have sown all the land of Burley twice over.
The wet continued. It rained and rained every day, and when it rained it poured.
The Squire had heard of a Yankee invention for drying wheat under cover, and rashly set about a rude but most expensive imitation thereof. He first mentioned the matter to Uncle Ramsay at the breakfast-table. The Squire seemed in excellent spirits that morning. He was walking briskly up and down the room rubbing his hands, as if in deep but pleasant thought, when his brother came quietly in.
“Hullo! you lazy old sea-dog. Why you’d lie in your bed till the sun burned a hole in the blanket. Now just look at me.”
“I’m just looking at you.”
“Well, I’ve been up for hours. I’m as hungry as a Caithness Highlander. And I’ve got an idea.”
“I thought there was something in the wind.”
“Guess.”
“Guess, indeed! Goodness forbid I should try. But I say, brother,” continued Uncle Ramsay, laughing, “couldn’t you manage to fall asleep somewhere out of doors, like the man in the story, and wake up and find yourself a king? My stars, wouldn’t we have reforms as long as your reign lasted! The breakfast, Mary? Ah, that’s the style!”
“You won’t be serious and listen, I suppose, Ramsay.”
“Oh, yes; I will.”
“Well, the Americans—”
“The Americans again; but go on.”
“The Americans, in some parts where I’ve been, wouldn’t lose a straw in a bad season. It is all done by means of great fanners and heated air, you know. Now, I’m going to show these honest Northumbrian farmers a thing or two. I—”
“I say, brother, hadn’t you better trust to Providence, and wait for a fair wind?”
“Now, Ramsay, that’s where you and I differ. You’re a slow Moses. I want to move ahead a trifle in front of the times. I’ve been looking all over the dictionary of my daily life, and I can’t find such a word as ‘wait’ in it.”
“Let me give you some of this steak, brother.”
“My plan of operations, Ramsay, is—”
“Why,” said Mrs Broadbent, “you haven’t eaten anything yet!”
“I thought,” said Uncle Ramsay, “you were as hungry as a Tipperary Highlander, or some such animal.”
“My plan, Ramsay, is—” etc, etc.
The two “etc, etc’s” in the last line stand for all the rest of the honest Squire’s speech, which, as his sailor brother said, was as long as the logline. But for all his hunger he made but a poor breakfast, and immediately after he jumped up and hurried away to the barn-yards.
It was a busy time for the next two weeks at Burley Old Farm, but, to the Squire’s credit be it said, he was pretty successful with his strange operation of drying wheat independent of the sun. His ricks were built, and he was happy—happy as long as he thought nothing about the expense. But he did take an hour or two one evening to run through accounts, as he called it. Uncle Ramsay was with him.
“Why, brother,” said Ramsay, looking very serious now indeed, “you are terribly down to leeward—awfully out of pocket!”
“Ah! never mind, Ramsay. One can’t keep ahead of the times now-a-days, you know, without spending a little.”
“Spending a little! Where are your other books? Mr Walton and I will have a look through them to-night, if you don’t mind.”
“Not a bit, brother, not a bit. We’re going to give a dance to-morrow night to the servants, so if you like to bother with the book-work I’ll attend to the terpsichorean kick up.”
Mr Walton and Uncle Ramsay had a snack in the office that evening instead of coming up to supper, and when Mrs Broadbent looked in to say good-night she found them both quiet and hard at work.
“I say, Walton,” said Uncle Ramsay some time after, “this is serious. Draw near the fire and let us have a talk.”
“It is sad as well as serious,” said Walton.
“Had you any idea of it?”
“Not the slightest. In fact I’m to blame, I think, for not seeing to the books before. But the Squire—”
Walton hesitated.
“I know my brother well,” said Ramsay. “As good a fellow as ever lived, but as headstrong as a nor’-easter. And now he has been spending money on machinery to the tune of some ten thousand pounds. He has been growing crop after crop of wheat as if he lived on the prairies and the land was new; and he has really been putting as much down in seed, labour, and fashionable manures as he has taken off.”
“Yet,” said Walton, “he is no fool.”
“No, not he; he is clever, too much so. But heaven send his pride, honest though it be, does not result in a fall.”
The two sat till long past twelve talking and planning, then they opened the casement and walked out on to the lawn. It was a lovely autumn night. The broad, round moon was high in the heavens, fighting its way through a sky of curdling clouds which greatly detracted from its radiance.
“Look, Walton,” said the sailor, “to windward; yonder it is all blue sky, by-and-by it will be a bright and lovely night.”
“By-and-by. Yes,” sighed Walton.
“But see! What is that down yonder rising white over the trees? Smoke! Why, Walton, the barn-yards are all on fire!”
Almost at the same moment Branson rushed upon the scene.
“Glad you’re up, gentlemen,” he gasped. “Wake the Squire. The servants are all astir. We must save the beasts, come of everything else what will.”
The farm-steading of Burley was built in the usual square formation round a centre straw-yard, which even in winter was always kept so well filled that beasts might lie out all night. To the north were the stacks, and it was here the fire originated, and unluckily the wind blew from that direction. It was by no means high; but fire makes its own wind, and in less than half an hour the whole yard was ablaze and burning fiercely, while the byres, stables, and barns had all caught. From the very first these latter had been enveloped in dense rolling clouds of smoke, and sparks as thick as falling snowflakes, so that to save any of the live stock seemed almost an impossibility.
With all his mania for machinery, and for improvements of every kind possible to apply to agriculture, it is indeed a wonder that the Squire had not established a fire brigade on his farm. But fire was an eventuality which he had entirely left out of his reckoning, and now there was really no means of checking the terrible conflagration.
As soon as the alarm was given every one did what he could to save the live stock; but the smoke was blinding, maddening, and little could be done save taking the doors off their hinges.
Who knows what prodigies of valour were performed that night by the humble cowmen even, in their attempts to drive the oxen and cows out, and away to a place of safety? In some instances, when they had nearly succeeded, the cattle blocked the doorways, or, having got out to the straw-yard, charged madly back again, and prevented the exit of their fellows. Thus several servants ran terrible risks to their lives.
They were more successful in saving the horses, and this was greatly owing to Archie’s presence of mind. He had dashed madly into the stable for his pet Scallowa. The Shetland pony had never looked more wild before. He sniffed the danger, he snorted and reared. All at once it occurred to Archie to mount and ride him out. No sooner had he got on his back than he came forth like a lamb. He took him to a field and let him free, and as he was hurrying back he met little Peter.
“Come, Peter, come,” he cried; “we can save the horses.”
The two of them rushed to the stable, and horse after horse was bridled and mounted by little Peter and ridden out.
But a fearful hitch occurred. Tell, the Squire’s hunter, backed against the stable door and closed it, thus imprisoning Archie, who found it impossible to open the door.
The roof had already caught. The horses were screaming in terror, and rearing wildly against the walls.
Peter rushed away to seek assistance. He met Branson, and in a word or two told him what had happened.
Luckily axes were at hand, and sturdy volunteers speedily smashed the door in, and poor Archie, more dead than alive, with torn clothes and bleeding face, was dragged through.
The scene after this must be left to imagination. But the Squire reverently and fervently thanked God when the shrieks of those fire-imprisoned cattle were hushed in death, and nothing was to be heard save the crackle and roar of the flames.
The fire had lit up the countryside for miles around. The moonlight itself was bright, but within a certain radius the blazing farm cast shadows against it.
Next morning stackyards, barn-yards, farm-steading, machinery-house, and everything pertaining to Burley Old Farm, presented but a smouldering, blackened heap of ruins.
Squire Broadbent entertained his poor, frightened people to an early breakfast in the servants’ hall, and the most cheerful face there was that of the Squire. Here is his little speech:
“My good folks, sit down and eat; and let us be thankful we’re all here, and that no human lives are lost. My good kinswoman Kate here will tell you that there never yet was an ill but there might be a worse. Let us pray the worse may never come.”
Chapter Ten.“After all, it doesn’t take much to make a Man Happy.”For weeks to come neither Uncle Ramsay nor Walton had the heart to add another sorrow to the Squire’s cup of misery. They knew that the fire had but brought on a little sooner a catastrophe which was already fulling; they knew that Squire Broadbent was virtually a ruined man.All the machinery had been rendered useless; the most of the cattle were dead; the stacks were gone; and yet, strange to say, the Squire hoped on. Those horses and cattle which had been saved were housed now in rudely-built sheds, among the fire-blackened ruins of their former wholesome stables and byres.One day Branson, who had always been a confidential servant, sent Mary in to say he wished to speak to the Squire. His master came out at once.“Nothing else, Branson,” he said. “You carry a long face, man.”“The wet weather and the cold have done their work, sir. Will you walk down with me to the cattle-sheds?”Arrived there, he pointed to a splendid fat ox, who stood in his stall before his untouched turnips with hanging head and dry, parched nose. His hot breath was visible when he threw his head now and then uneasily round towards his loin, as if in pain. There was a visible swelling on the rump. Branson placed a hand on it, and the Squire could hear it “bog” and crackle.“What is that, Branson? Has he been hurt?”“No, sir, worse. I’ll show you.”He took out his sharp hunting-knife.“It won’t hurt the poor beast,” he said.Then he cut deep into the swelling. The animal never moved. No blood followed the incision, but the gaping wound was black, and filled with air-bubbles.“The quarter-ill,” said the cowman, who stood mournfully by.That ox was dead in a few hours. Another died next day, two the next, and so on, though not in an increasing ratio; but in a month there was hardly an animal alive about the place except the horses.It was time now the Squire should know all, and he did. He looked a chastened man when he came out from that interview with his brother and Walton. But he put a right cheery face on matters when he told his wife.“We’ll have to retrench,” he said. “It’ll be a struggle for a time, but we’ll get over it right enough.”Present money, however, was wanted, and raised it must be.And now came the hardest blow the Squire had yet received. It was a staggering one, though he met it boldly. There was then at Burley Old Mansion a long picture gallery. It was a room in an upper story, and extended the whole length of the house—a hall in fact, and one that more than one Squire Broadbent had entertained his friends right royally in. From the walls not only did portraits of ancestors bold and gay, smile or frown down, but there hung there also many a splendid landscape and seascape by old masters.Most of the latter had to be sold, and the gallery was closed, for the simple reason that Squire Broadbent, courageous though he was, could not look upon its bare and desecrated walls without a feeling of sorrow.Pictures even from the drawing-room had to go also, and that room too was closed. But the breakfast-room, which opened to the lawn and rose gardens, where the wild birds sang so sweetly in summer, was left intact; so was the dining-room, and that cosy, wee green parlour in which the family delighted to assemble around the fire in the winter’s evenings.Squire Broadbent had been always a favourite in the county—somewhat of an upstart and iconoclast though he was—so the sympathy he received was universal.Iconoclast? Yes, he had delighted in shivering the humble idols of others, and now his own were cast down. Nobody, however, deserted him. Farmers and Squires might have said among themselves that they always knew Broadbent was “going the pace,” and that his new-fangled American notions were poorly suited to England, but in his presence they did all they could to cheer him.When the ploughing time came round they gave him what is called in the far North “a love-darg.” Men with teams of horses came from every farm for miles around and tilled his ground. They had luncheon in a marquee, but they would not hear of stopping to dinner. They were indeed thoughtful and kind.The parson of the parish and the doctor were particular friends of the Squire. They often dropped in of an evening to talk of old times with the family by the fireside.“I’m right glad,” the doctor said one evening, “to see that you don’t lose heart, Squire.”“Bless me, sir, why should I? To be sure we’re poor now, but God has left us a deal of comfort, doctor, and, after all,it doesn’t take much to make a man happy.”Boys will be boys. Yes, we all know that. But there comes a time in the life of every right-thinking lad when another truth strikes home to him, that boys will be men.I rather think that the sooner a boy becomes cognisant of this fact the better. Life is not all a dream; it must sooner or later become a stern reality. Life is not all pleasant parade and show, like a field-day at Aldershot; no, for sooner or later pomp and panoply have to be exchanged for camp-life and action, and bright uniforms are either rolled in blood and dust, or come triumphant, though tarnished, from the field of glory. Life is not all plain sailing over sunlit seas, for by-and-by the clouds bank up, storms come on, and the good ship has to do battle with wind and wave.But who would have it otherwise? No one would who possesses the slightest ray of honest ambition, or a single spark of that pride of self which we need not blush to own.One day, about the beginning of autumn, Rupert and Archie, and their sister Elsie, were in the room in the tower. They sat together in a turret chamber, Elsie gazing dreamily from the window at the beautiful scenery spread out beneath. The woods and wilds, the rolling hills, the silvery stream, the half-ripe grain moving in the wind, as waves at sea move, and the silvery sunshine over all. She was in a kind of a daydream, her fingers listlessly touching a chord on the harp now and then. A pretty picture she looked, too, with her bonnie brown hair, and her bonnie blue eyes, and thorough English face, thorough English beauty. Perhaps Archie had been thinking something of this sort as he sat there looking at her, while Rupert half-lay in the rocking-chair, which his brother had made for him, engrossed as usual in a book.Whether Archie did think thus or not, certain it is that presently he drew his chair close to his sister’s, and laying one arm fondly on her shoulder.“What is sissie looking at?” he asked.“Oh, Archie,” she replied, “I don’t think I’ve been looking at anything; but I’ve been seeing everything and wishing!”“Wishing, Elsie? Well, you don’t look merry. What were you wishing?”“I was wishing the old days were back again, when—when father was rich; before the awful fire came, and the plague, and everything. It has made us all old, I think. Wouldn’t you like father was rich again?”“I am not certain; but wishes are not horses, you know.”“No,” said Elsie; “only if it could even be always like this, and if you and Rupert and I could be always as we are now. I think that, poor though we are, everything just now is so pretty and so pleasant. But you are going away to the university, and the place won’t be the same. I shall get older faster than ever then.”“Well, Elsie,” said Archie, laughing, “I am so old that I am going to make my will.”Rupert put down his book with a quiet smile.“What are you going to leave me, old man? Scallowa?”“No, Rupert, you’re too long in the legs for Scallowa, you have no idea what a bodkin of a boy you are growing. Scallowa I will and bequeath to my pretty sister here, and I’ll buy her a side-saddle, and two pennyworth of carrot seed. Elsie will also have Bounder, and you, Rupert, shall have Fuss.”“Anything else for me?”“Don’t be greedy. But I’ll tell you. You shall have my tool-house, and all my tools, and my gun besides. Well, this room is to be sister’s own, and she shall also have my fishing-rod, and the book of flies that poor Bob Cooper made for me. Oh, don’t despise them, they are all wonders!”“Well really, Archie,” said Elsie, “you talk as earnestly as if you actually were going to die.”“Who said I was going to die? No, I don’t mean to die till I’ve done much more mischief.”“Hush! Archie.”“Well, I’m hushed.”“Why do you want to make your will?”“Oh, it isn’t wanting to make my will! I am—I’ve done it. And the ‘why’ is this, I’m going away.”“To Oxford?”“No, Elsie, not to Oxford. I’ve got quite enough Latin and Greek out of Walton to last me all my life. I couldn’t be a doctor; besides father is hardly rich enough to make me one at present. I couldn’t be a doctor, and I’m not good enough to be a parson.”“Archie, how you talk.”There were tears in Elsie’s eyes now.“I can’t help it. I’m going away to enter life in a new land. Uncle Ramsay has told me all about Australia. He says the old country is used up, and fortunes can be made in a few years on the other side of the globe.”There was silence in the turret for long minutes; the whispering of the wind in the elm trees beneath could be heard, the murmuring of the river, and far away in the woods the cawing of rooks.“Don’t you cry, Elsie,” said Archie. “I’ve been thinking about all this for some time, and my mind is made up. I’m going, Elsie, and I know it is for the best. You don’t imagine for a single moment, do you, that I’ll forget the dear old times, and you all? No, no, no. I’ll think about you every night, and all day long, and I’ll come back rich. You don’t think that Iwon’tmake my fortune, do you? Because I mean to, and will. So there. Don’t cry, Elsie.”“I’mnot going to cry, Archie,” said Rupert.“Right, Rupert, you’re a brick, as Branson says.”“I’m not old enough,” continued Rupert, “to give you my blessing, though I suppose Kate would give you hers; but we’ll all pray for you.”“Well,” said Archie thoughtfully, “that will help some.”“Why, you silly boy, it will help a lot.”“I wish I were as good as you, Rupert. But I’m just going to try hard to do my best, and I feel certain I’ll be all right.”“You know, Roup, how well I can play cricket, and how I often easily bowl father out. Well, that is because I’ve just tried my very hardest to become a good player; and I’m going to try my very hardest again in another way. Oh, I shall win! I’m cocksure I shall. Come, Elsie, dry your eyes. Here’s my handkie. Don’t be a little old wife.”“You won’t get killed, or anything, Archie?”“No; I won’t get killed, or eaten either.”“They do tell me,” said Elsie—“that is, old Kate told me—that the streets in Australia are all paved with gold, and that the roofs of the houses are all solid silver.”“Well, I don’t think she is quite right,” said Archie, laughing. “Anyhow, uncle says there is a fortune to be made, and I’m going to make it. That’s all.”Archie went straight away down from that boy’s room feeling every inch a man, and had an interview with his father and uncle.It is needless to relate what took place there, or to report the conversation which the older folks had that evening in the little green parlour. Both father and uncle looked upon Archie’s request as something only natural. For both these men, singular to say, had been boys once themselves; and, in the Squire’s own words, Archie was a son to be proud of.“We can’t keep the lad always with us, mother,” said Squire Broadbent; “and the wide world is the best of schools. I feel certain that, go where he will, he won’t lose heart. If he does, I should be ashamed to own him as a son. So there! My only regret is, Ramsay, that I cannot send the lad away with a better lined pocket.”“My dear silly old brother, he will be better as he is. And I’m really not sure that he would not be better still if he went away, as many have gone before him, with only a stick and a bundle over his shoulder. You have a deal too much of the Broadbent pride; and Archie had better leave that all behind at home, or be careful to conceal it when he gets to the land of his adoption.”The following is a brief list of Archie’s stock-in-trade when he sailed away in the good shipDugongto begin the world alone: 1. A good stock of clothes. 2. A good stock of assurance. 3. Plenty of hope. 4. Good health and abundance of strength. 5. A little nest egg at an Australian bank to keep him partly independent till he should be able to establish a footing. 6. Letters of introduction, blessings, and a little pocket Bible.His uncle chose his ship, and sent him away round the Cape in a good old-fashioned sailing vessel. And his uncle went to Glasgow to see him off, his last words being, “Keep up your heart, boy, whatever happens; and keep calm in every difficulty. Good-bye.”Away sailed the ship, and away went Archie to see the cities that are paved with gold, and whose houses have roofs of solid silver.
For weeks to come neither Uncle Ramsay nor Walton had the heart to add another sorrow to the Squire’s cup of misery. They knew that the fire had but brought on a little sooner a catastrophe which was already fulling; they knew that Squire Broadbent was virtually a ruined man.
All the machinery had been rendered useless; the most of the cattle were dead; the stacks were gone; and yet, strange to say, the Squire hoped on. Those horses and cattle which had been saved were housed now in rudely-built sheds, among the fire-blackened ruins of their former wholesome stables and byres.
One day Branson, who had always been a confidential servant, sent Mary in to say he wished to speak to the Squire. His master came out at once.
“Nothing else, Branson,” he said. “You carry a long face, man.”
“The wet weather and the cold have done their work, sir. Will you walk down with me to the cattle-sheds?”
Arrived there, he pointed to a splendid fat ox, who stood in his stall before his untouched turnips with hanging head and dry, parched nose. His hot breath was visible when he threw his head now and then uneasily round towards his loin, as if in pain. There was a visible swelling on the rump. Branson placed a hand on it, and the Squire could hear it “bog” and crackle.
“What is that, Branson? Has he been hurt?”
“No, sir, worse. I’ll show you.”
He took out his sharp hunting-knife.
“It won’t hurt the poor beast,” he said.
Then he cut deep into the swelling. The animal never moved. No blood followed the incision, but the gaping wound was black, and filled with air-bubbles.
“The quarter-ill,” said the cowman, who stood mournfully by.
That ox was dead in a few hours. Another died next day, two the next, and so on, though not in an increasing ratio; but in a month there was hardly an animal alive about the place except the horses.
It was time now the Squire should know all, and he did. He looked a chastened man when he came out from that interview with his brother and Walton. But he put a right cheery face on matters when he told his wife.
“We’ll have to retrench,” he said. “It’ll be a struggle for a time, but we’ll get over it right enough.”
Present money, however, was wanted, and raised it must be.
And now came the hardest blow the Squire had yet received. It was a staggering one, though he met it boldly. There was then at Burley Old Mansion a long picture gallery. It was a room in an upper story, and extended the whole length of the house—a hall in fact, and one that more than one Squire Broadbent had entertained his friends right royally in. From the walls not only did portraits of ancestors bold and gay, smile or frown down, but there hung there also many a splendid landscape and seascape by old masters.
Most of the latter had to be sold, and the gallery was closed, for the simple reason that Squire Broadbent, courageous though he was, could not look upon its bare and desecrated walls without a feeling of sorrow.
Pictures even from the drawing-room had to go also, and that room too was closed. But the breakfast-room, which opened to the lawn and rose gardens, where the wild birds sang so sweetly in summer, was left intact; so was the dining-room, and that cosy, wee green parlour in which the family delighted to assemble around the fire in the winter’s evenings.
Squire Broadbent had been always a favourite in the county—somewhat of an upstart and iconoclast though he was—so the sympathy he received was universal.
Iconoclast? Yes, he had delighted in shivering the humble idols of others, and now his own were cast down. Nobody, however, deserted him. Farmers and Squires might have said among themselves that they always knew Broadbent was “going the pace,” and that his new-fangled American notions were poorly suited to England, but in his presence they did all they could to cheer him.
When the ploughing time came round they gave him what is called in the far North “a love-darg.” Men with teams of horses came from every farm for miles around and tilled his ground. They had luncheon in a marquee, but they would not hear of stopping to dinner. They were indeed thoughtful and kind.
The parson of the parish and the doctor were particular friends of the Squire. They often dropped in of an evening to talk of old times with the family by the fireside.
“I’m right glad,” the doctor said one evening, “to see that you don’t lose heart, Squire.”
“Bless me, sir, why should I? To be sure we’re poor now, but God has left us a deal of comfort, doctor, and, after all,it doesn’t take much to make a man happy.”
Boys will be boys. Yes, we all know that. But there comes a time in the life of every right-thinking lad when another truth strikes home to him, that boys will be men.
I rather think that the sooner a boy becomes cognisant of this fact the better. Life is not all a dream; it must sooner or later become a stern reality. Life is not all pleasant parade and show, like a field-day at Aldershot; no, for sooner or later pomp and panoply have to be exchanged for camp-life and action, and bright uniforms are either rolled in blood and dust, or come triumphant, though tarnished, from the field of glory. Life is not all plain sailing over sunlit seas, for by-and-by the clouds bank up, storms come on, and the good ship has to do battle with wind and wave.
But who would have it otherwise? No one would who possesses the slightest ray of honest ambition, or a single spark of that pride of self which we need not blush to own.
One day, about the beginning of autumn, Rupert and Archie, and their sister Elsie, were in the room in the tower. They sat together in a turret chamber, Elsie gazing dreamily from the window at the beautiful scenery spread out beneath. The woods and wilds, the rolling hills, the silvery stream, the half-ripe grain moving in the wind, as waves at sea move, and the silvery sunshine over all. She was in a kind of a daydream, her fingers listlessly touching a chord on the harp now and then. A pretty picture she looked, too, with her bonnie brown hair, and her bonnie blue eyes, and thorough English face, thorough English beauty. Perhaps Archie had been thinking something of this sort as he sat there looking at her, while Rupert half-lay in the rocking-chair, which his brother had made for him, engrossed as usual in a book.
Whether Archie did think thus or not, certain it is that presently he drew his chair close to his sister’s, and laying one arm fondly on her shoulder.
“What is sissie looking at?” he asked.
“Oh, Archie,” she replied, “I don’t think I’ve been looking at anything; but I’ve been seeing everything and wishing!”
“Wishing, Elsie? Well, you don’t look merry. What were you wishing?”
“I was wishing the old days were back again, when—when father was rich; before the awful fire came, and the plague, and everything. It has made us all old, I think. Wouldn’t you like father was rich again?”
“I am not certain; but wishes are not horses, you know.”
“No,” said Elsie; “only if it could even be always like this, and if you and Rupert and I could be always as we are now. I think that, poor though we are, everything just now is so pretty and so pleasant. But you are going away to the university, and the place won’t be the same. I shall get older faster than ever then.”
“Well, Elsie,” said Archie, laughing, “I am so old that I am going to make my will.”
Rupert put down his book with a quiet smile.
“What are you going to leave me, old man? Scallowa?”
“No, Rupert, you’re too long in the legs for Scallowa, you have no idea what a bodkin of a boy you are growing. Scallowa I will and bequeath to my pretty sister here, and I’ll buy her a side-saddle, and two pennyworth of carrot seed. Elsie will also have Bounder, and you, Rupert, shall have Fuss.”
“Anything else for me?”
“Don’t be greedy. But I’ll tell you. You shall have my tool-house, and all my tools, and my gun besides. Well, this room is to be sister’s own, and she shall also have my fishing-rod, and the book of flies that poor Bob Cooper made for me. Oh, don’t despise them, they are all wonders!”
“Well really, Archie,” said Elsie, “you talk as earnestly as if you actually were going to die.”
“Who said I was going to die? No, I don’t mean to die till I’ve done much more mischief.”
“Hush! Archie.”
“Well, I’m hushed.”
“Why do you want to make your will?”
“Oh, it isn’t wanting to make my will! I am—I’ve done it. And the ‘why’ is this, I’m going away.”
“To Oxford?”
“No, Elsie, not to Oxford. I’ve got quite enough Latin and Greek out of Walton to last me all my life. I couldn’t be a doctor; besides father is hardly rich enough to make me one at present. I couldn’t be a doctor, and I’m not good enough to be a parson.”
“Archie, how you talk.”
There were tears in Elsie’s eyes now.
“I can’t help it. I’m going away to enter life in a new land. Uncle Ramsay has told me all about Australia. He says the old country is used up, and fortunes can be made in a few years on the other side of the globe.”
There was silence in the turret for long minutes; the whispering of the wind in the elm trees beneath could be heard, the murmuring of the river, and far away in the woods the cawing of rooks.
“Don’t you cry, Elsie,” said Archie. “I’ve been thinking about all this for some time, and my mind is made up. I’m going, Elsie, and I know it is for the best. You don’t imagine for a single moment, do you, that I’ll forget the dear old times, and you all? No, no, no. I’ll think about you every night, and all day long, and I’ll come back rich. You don’t think that Iwon’tmake my fortune, do you? Because I mean to, and will. So there. Don’t cry, Elsie.”
“I’mnot going to cry, Archie,” said Rupert.
“Right, Rupert, you’re a brick, as Branson says.”
“I’m not old enough,” continued Rupert, “to give you my blessing, though I suppose Kate would give you hers; but we’ll all pray for you.”
“Well,” said Archie thoughtfully, “that will help some.”
“Why, you silly boy, it will help a lot.”
“I wish I were as good as you, Rupert. But I’m just going to try hard to do my best, and I feel certain I’ll be all right.”
“You know, Roup, how well I can play cricket, and how I often easily bowl father out. Well, that is because I’ve just tried my very hardest to become a good player; and I’m going to try my very hardest again in another way. Oh, I shall win! I’m cocksure I shall. Come, Elsie, dry your eyes. Here’s my handkie. Don’t be a little old wife.”
“You won’t get killed, or anything, Archie?”
“No; I won’t get killed, or eaten either.”
“They do tell me,” said Elsie—“that is, old Kate told me—that the streets in Australia are all paved with gold, and that the roofs of the houses are all solid silver.”
“Well, I don’t think she is quite right,” said Archie, laughing. “Anyhow, uncle says there is a fortune to be made, and I’m going to make it. That’s all.”
Archie went straight away down from that boy’s room feeling every inch a man, and had an interview with his father and uncle.
It is needless to relate what took place there, or to report the conversation which the older folks had that evening in the little green parlour. Both father and uncle looked upon Archie’s request as something only natural. For both these men, singular to say, had been boys once themselves; and, in the Squire’s own words, Archie was a son to be proud of.
“We can’t keep the lad always with us, mother,” said Squire Broadbent; “and the wide world is the best of schools. I feel certain that, go where he will, he won’t lose heart. If he does, I should be ashamed to own him as a son. So there! My only regret is, Ramsay, that I cannot send the lad away with a better lined pocket.”
“My dear silly old brother, he will be better as he is. And I’m really not sure that he would not be better still if he went away, as many have gone before him, with only a stick and a bundle over his shoulder. You have a deal too much of the Broadbent pride; and Archie had better leave that all behind at home, or be careful to conceal it when he gets to the land of his adoption.”
The following is a brief list of Archie’s stock-in-trade when he sailed away in the good shipDugongto begin the world alone: 1. A good stock of clothes. 2. A good stock of assurance. 3. Plenty of hope. 4. Good health and abundance of strength. 5. A little nest egg at an Australian bank to keep him partly independent till he should be able to establish a footing. 6. Letters of introduction, blessings, and a little pocket Bible.
His uncle chose his ship, and sent him away round the Cape in a good old-fashioned sailing vessel. And his uncle went to Glasgow to see him off, his last words being, “Keep up your heart, boy, whatever happens; and keep calm in every difficulty. Good-bye.”
Away sailed the ship, and away went Archie to see the cities that are paved with gold, and whose houses have roofs of solid silver.
Chapter Eleven.Book II—At the Golden Gates.“Spoken Like His Father’s Son.”“Cheer, boys, cheer, no more of idle sorrow,Courage, true hearts shall bear us on our way;Hope flies before, and points the bright to-morrow,Let us forget the dangers of to-day.”That dear old song! How many a time and oft it has helped to raise the drooping spirits of emigrants sailing away from these loved islands, never again to return!The melody itself too is such a manly one. Inez dear, bring my fiddle. Not a bit of bravado in that ringing air, bold and all though it is. Yet every line tells of British ardour and determination—ardour that no thoughts of home or love can cool, determination that no danger can daunt.“Cheer, boys, cheer.” The last rays of the setting sun were lighting up the Cornish cliffs, on which so few in that good ship would ever again set eyes, when those around the forecastle-head took up the song.“Cheer, boys, cheer.” Listen! Those on the quarterdeck join in the chorus, sinking in song all difference of class and rank. And they join, too, in that rattling “Three times three” that bids farewell to England.Then the crimson clouds high up in the west change to purple and brown, the sea grows grey, and the distant shore becomes slaty blue. Soon the stars peep out, and the passengers cease to tramp about, and find their way below to the cosily-lighted saloon.Archie is sitting on a sofa quite apart from all the others. The song is still ringing in his head, and, if the whole truth must be told, he feels just a trifle down-hearted. He cannot quite account for this, though he tries to, and his thoughts are upon the whole somewhat rambling. They would no doubt be quite connected if it were not for the distracting novelty of all his present surroundings, which are as utterly different from anything he has hitherto become acquainted with as if he had suddenly been transported to another planet.No, he cannot account for being dull. Perhaps the motion of the ship has something to do with it, though this is not a very romantic way of putting it. Archie has plenty of moral courage; and as the ship encountered head winds, and made a long and most difficult passage down through the Irish Sea, he braced himself to get over his morsel ofmal de mer, and has succeeded.He is quite cross with himself for permitting his mind to be tinged with melancholy. That song ought to have set him up.“Why should we weep to sail in search of fortune?”Oh, Archie is not weeping; catch him doing anything so girlish and peevish! He would not cry in his cabin where he could do so without being seen, and it is not likely he would permit moisture to appear in his eyes in the saloon here. Yet his home never did seem to him so delightful, so cosy, so happy, as the thoughts of it do now. Why had he not loved it even more than he did when it was yet all around him? The dear little green parlour, his gentle lady mother that used to knit so quietly by the fire in the winter’s evenings, listening with pleasure to his father’s daring schemes and hopeful plans. His bonnie sister, Elsie, so proud of him—Archie; Rupert, with his pale, classical face and gentle smile; matter-of-fact Walton; jolly old Uncle Ramsay. They all rose up before his mind’s eye as they had been; nay but as they might be even at that very moment. And the room in the tower, the evenings spent there in summer when daylight was fading over the hills and woods, and the rooks flying wearily home to their nests in the swaying elm trees; or in winter when the fire burned brightly on the hearth, and weird old Kate sat in her high-backed chair, telling her strange old-world stories, with Branson, wide-eyed, fiddle in hand, on a seat near her, and Bounder—poor Bounder—on the bear’s skin. Then the big kitchen, or servants’ hall—the servants that all loved “master Archie” so dearly, and laughed and enjoyed every prank he used to play.Dear old Burley! should he ever see it again? A week has not passed since he left it, and yet it seems and feels a lifetime.He was young a week ago; now he is old, very old—nearly a man. Nearly? Well, nearly, in years; in thoughts, and feelings, and circumstances even—quitea man. But then he should not feel down-hearted for this simple reason; he had left home under such bright auspices. Many boys run away to sea. The difference between their lot and his is indeed a wide one. Yes, that must be very sad. No home life to look back upon, no friends to think of or love, no pleasant present, no hopeful future.Then Archie, instead of letting his thoughts dwell any longer on the past, began at once to bridge over for himself the long period of time that must elapse ere he should return to Burley Old Farm. Of course there would be changes. He dared say Walton would be away; but Elsie and Rupert would still be there, and his father and mother, looking perhaps a little older, but still as happy. And the burned farm-steading would be restored, or if it were not, it soon should be after he came back; for he would be rich, rolling in wealth in fact, if half the stories he had heard of Australia were true, even allowing thatallthe streets were not paved with gold, andallthe houses not roofed with sparkling silver.So engrossed was he with these pleasant thoughts, that he had not observed the advent of a passenger who had entered the saloon, and sat quietly down on a camp-stool near him. A man of about forty, dressed in a rough pilot suit of clothes, with a rosy weather-beaten but pleasant face, and a few grey hairs in his short black beard.He was looking at Archie intently when their eyes met, and the boy felt somewhat abashed. The passenger, however, did not remove his glance instantly; he spoke instead.“You’ve never been to sea before, have you?”“No, sir; never been off the land till a week ago.”“Going to seek your fortune?”“Yes; I’m going tomakemy fortune.”“Bravo! I hope you will.”“What’s to hinder me?”“Nothing; oh, nothing much! Everybody doesn’t though. But you seem to have a bit of go in you.”“Are you going to make yours?” said Archie.The stranger laughed.“No,” he replied. “Unluckily, perhaps, mine was made for me. I’ve been out before too, and I’m going again to see things.”“You’re going in quest of adventure?”“I suppose that is really it. That is how the story-books put it, anyhow. But I don’t expect to meet with adventures like Sinbad the Sailor, you know; and I don’t think I would like to have a little old man of the sea with his little old legs round my neck.”“Australia is a very wonderful place, isn’t it?”“Yes; wonderfully wonderful. Everything is upside-down there, you know. To begin with, the people walk with their heads downwards. Some of the trees are as tall as the moon, and at certain seasons of the year the bark comes tumbling off them like rolls of shoeleather. Others are shaped like bottles, others again have heads of waving grass, and others have ferns for tops. There are trees, too, that drop all their leaves to give the flowers a chance; and these are so brilliantly red, and so numerous, that the forest where they grow looks all on fire. Well, many of the animals walk or jump on two legs, instead of running on four. Does that interest you?”“Yes. Tell me something more about birds.”“Well, ducks are everywhere in Australia, and many kinds are as big as geese. They seem to thrive. And ages ago, it is said by the natives, the moles in Australia got tired of living in the dark, and held a meeting above-ground, and determined to live a different mode of life. So they grew longer claws, and short, broad, flat tails, and bills like ducks, and took to the water, and have been happy ever since.“Well, there are black swans in abundance; and though it is two or three years since I was out last, I cannot forget a beautiful bird, something betwixt a pheasant and peacock, and the cock’s tail is his especial delight. It is something really to be proud of, and at a distance looks like a beautiful lyre, strings and all. The cockatoos swarm around the trees, and scream and laugh at the lyre-bird giving himself airs, but I daresay this is all envy. The hen bird is not a beauty, but her chief delight is to watch the antics and attitudes of her lord and master as he struts about making love and fun to her time about, at one moment singing a kind of low, sweet song, at another mocking every sound that is heard in the forest, every noise made by man or bird or beast. No wonder the female lyre-bird thinks her lord the cleverest and most beautiful creature in the world!“Then there is a daft-looking kingfisher, all head and bill, and wondering eyes, who laughs like a jackass, and makes you laugh to hear him laugh. So loud does he laugh at times that his voice drowns every other sound in the forest.“There is a bird eight feet high, partly cassowary, partly ostrich, that when attacked kicks like a horse, or more like a cow, because it kicks sideways. But if I were to sit here till our good ship reached the Cape, I could not tell you about half the curious, beautiful, and ridiculous creatures and things you will find in Australia if you move much about. I do think that that country beats all creation for the gorgeousness of its wild birds and wild flowers; and if things do seem a bit higgledy-piggledy at first, you soon settle down to it, and soon tire wondering at anything.“But,” continued the stranger, “with all their peculiarities, the birds and beasts are satisfied with their get-up, and pleased with their surroundings, although all day long in the forests the cockatoos, and parrots, and piping crows, and lyre-birds do little else but joke and chaff one another because they all look so comical.“Yes, lad, Australia you will find is a country of contrarieties, and the only wonder to me is that the rivers don’t all run up-hill instead of running down; and mind, they are sometimes broader at their sources than they are at their ends.”“There is plenty of gold there?” asked Archie.“Oh, yes, any amount; but—”“But what, sir?”“The real difficulty—in fact, the only difficulty—is the finding of it.”“But that, I suppose, can be got over.”“Come along with me up on deck, and we’ll talk matters over. It is hot and stuffy down here; besides, they are going to lay the cloth.”Arrived at the quarterdeck, the stranger took hold of Archie’s arm, as if he had known him all his life.“Now,” he said, “my name is Vesey, generally called Captain Vesey, because I never did anything that I know of to merit the title. I’ve been in an army or two in different parts of the globe as a free lance, you know.”“How nice!”“Oh, delightful!” said Captain Vesey, though from the tone of his voice Archie was doubtful as to his meaning. “Well,” he added, “I own a yacht, now waiting for me, I believe, at the Cape of Good Hope, if she isn’t sunk, or burned, or something. And your tally?”“My what, sir?”“Your tally, your name, and the rest of it?”“Archie Broadbent, son of Squire Broadbent, of Burley Old Farm, Northumberland.”“What! you a son of Charlie Broadbent? Yankee Charlie, as we used to call him at the club. Well, well, well, wonders will never cease; and it only shows how small the world is, after all.”“And you used to know my father, sir?”“My dear boy, I promised myself the pleasure of calling on him at Burley. I’ve only been home for two months, however; and I heard—well, boy, I needn’t mince matters—I heard your father had been unfortunate, and had left his place, and gone nobody could tell me whither.”“No,” said Archie, laughing, “it isn’t quite so bad as all that; and it is bound to come right in the end.”“You are talking very hopefully, lad. I could trace a resemblance in your face to someone I knew the very moment I sat down. And there is something like the same cheerful ring in your voice there used to be in his. You really are a chip of the old block.”“So they say.” And Archie laughed again, pleased by this time.“But, you know, lad, you are very young to be going away to seek your fortune.”“I’ll get over that, sir.”“I hope so. Of course, you won’t go pottering after gold!”“I don’t know. If I thought I would find lots, I would go like a shot.”“Well, take my advice, and don’t. There, I do not want to discourage you; but you better turn your mind to farming—to squatting.”“That wouldn’t be very genteel, would it?”“Genteel! Why, lad, if you’re going to go in for genteelity, you’d best have stayed at home.”“Well, but I have an excellent education. I can write like copper-plate. I am a fair hand at figures, and well up in Latin and Greek; and—”“Ha! ha! ha!” Captain Vesey laughed aloud. “Latin and Greek, eh? You must keep that to yourself, boy.”“And,” continued Archie boldly, “I have a whole lot of capital introductions. I’m sure to get into a good office in Sydney; and in a few years—”Archie stopped short, because by the light that streamed from the skylight he could see that Captain Vesey was looking at him half-wonderingly, but evidently amused.“Go on,” said the captain.“Not a word more,” said Archie doggedly.“Finish your sentence, lad.”“I shan’t. There!”“Well, I’ll do it for you. You’ll get into a delightful office, with mahogany writing-desks and stained glass windows, Turkey carpet and an easy-chair. Your employer will take you out in his buggy every Sunday to dine with him; and after a few years, as you say, he’ll make you a co-partner; and you’ll end by marrying his daughter, and live happy ever after.”“You’re laughing at me, sir. I’ll go down below.”“Yes, I’m laughing at you, because you’re only a greenhorn; and it is as well that I should squeeze a little of the lime-juice out of you as anyone else. No, don’t go below. Mind, I was your father’s friend.”“Yes,” pouted poor Archie; “but you don’t appear to be mine. You are throwing cold water over my hopes; you are smashing my idols.”“A very pretty speech, Archie Broadbent. But mind you this—a hut on solid ground is better far than a castle in the air. And it is better that I should storm and capsize your cloud-castle, than that an absolute stranger did so.”“Well, I suppose you are right. Forgive me for being cross.”“Spoken like his father’s son,” said Captain Vesey, grasping and shaking the hand that Archie extended to him. “Now we know each other. Ding! ding! ding! there goes the dinner-bell. Sit next to me.”
“Cheer, boys, cheer, no more of idle sorrow,Courage, true hearts shall bear us on our way;Hope flies before, and points the bright to-morrow,Let us forget the dangers of to-day.”
“Cheer, boys, cheer, no more of idle sorrow,Courage, true hearts shall bear us on our way;Hope flies before, and points the bright to-morrow,Let us forget the dangers of to-day.”
That dear old song! How many a time and oft it has helped to raise the drooping spirits of emigrants sailing away from these loved islands, never again to return!
The melody itself too is such a manly one. Inez dear, bring my fiddle. Not a bit of bravado in that ringing air, bold and all though it is. Yet every line tells of British ardour and determination—ardour that no thoughts of home or love can cool, determination that no danger can daunt.
“Cheer, boys, cheer.” The last rays of the setting sun were lighting up the Cornish cliffs, on which so few in that good ship would ever again set eyes, when those around the forecastle-head took up the song.
“Cheer, boys, cheer.” Listen! Those on the quarterdeck join in the chorus, sinking in song all difference of class and rank. And they join, too, in that rattling “Three times three” that bids farewell to England.
Then the crimson clouds high up in the west change to purple and brown, the sea grows grey, and the distant shore becomes slaty blue. Soon the stars peep out, and the passengers cease to tramp about, and find their way below to the cosily-lighted saloon.
Archie is sitting on a sofa quite apart from all the others. The song is still ringing in his head, and, if the whole truth must be told, he feels just a trifle down-hearted. He cannot quite account for this, though he tries to, and his thoughts are upon the whole somewhat rambling. They would no doubt be quite connected if it were not for the distracting novelty of all his present surroundings, which are as utterly different from anything he has hitherto become acquainted with as if he had suddenly been transported to another planet.
No, he cannot account for being dull. Perhaps the motion of the ship has something to do with it, though this is not a very romantic way of putting it. Archie has plenty of moral courage; and as the ship encountered head winds, and made a long and most difficult passage down through the Irish Sea, he braced himself to get over his morsel ofmal de mer, and has succeeded.
He is quite cross with himself for permitting his mind to be tinged with melancholy. That song ought to have set him up.
“Why should we weep to sail in search of fortune?”
Oh, Archie is not weeping; catch him doing anything so girlish and peevish! He would not cry in his cabin where he could do so without being seen, and it is not likely he would permit moisture to appear in his eyes in the saloon here. Yet his home never did seem to him so delightful, so cosy, so happy, as the thoughts of it do now. Why had he not loved it even more than he did when it was yet all around him? The dear little green parlour, his gentle lady mother that used to knit so quietly by the fire in the winter’s evenings, listening with pleasure to his father’s daring schemes and hopeful plans. His bonnie sister, Elsie, so proud of him—Archie; Rupert, with his pale, classical face and gentle smile; matter-of-fact Walton; jolly old Uncle Ramsay. They all rose up before his mind’s eye as they had been; nay but as they might be even at that very moment. And the room in the tower, the evenings spent there in summer when daylight was fading over the hills and woods, and the rooks flying wearily home to their nests in the swaying elm trees; or in winter when the fire burned brightly on the hearth, and weird old Kate sat in her high-backed chair, telling her strange old-world stories, with Branson, wide-eyed, fiddle in hand, on a seat near her, and Bounder—poor Bounder—on the bear’s skin. Then the big kitchen, or servants’ hall—the servants that all loved “master Archie” so dearly, and laughed and enjoyed every prank he used to play.
Dear old Burley! should he ever see it again? A week has not passed since he left it, and yet it seems and feels a lifetime.
He was young a week ago; now he is old, very old—nearly a man. Nearly? Well, nearly, in years; in thoughts, and feelings, and circumstances even—quitea man. But then he should not feel down-hearted for this simple reason; he had left home under such bright auspices. Many boys run away to sea. The difference between their lot and his is indeed a wide one. Yes, that must be very sad. No home life to look back upon, no friends to think of or love, no pleasant present, no hopeful future.
Then Archie, instead of letting his thoughts dwell any longer on the past, began at once to bridge over for himself the long period of time that must elapse ere he should return to Burley Old Farm. Of course there would be changes. He dared say Walton would be away; but Elsie and Rupert would still be there, and his father and mother, looking perhaps a little older, but still as happy. And the burned farm-steading would be restored, or if it were not, it soon should be after he came back; for he would be rich, rolling in wealth in fact, if half the stories he had heard of Australia were true, even allowing thatallthe streets were not paved with gold, andallthe houses not roofed with sparkling silver.
So engrossed was he with these pleasant thoughts, that he had not observed the advent of a passenger who had entered the saloon, and sat quietly down on a camp-stool near him. A man of about forty, dressed in a rough pilot suit of clothes, with a rosy weather-beaten but pleasant face, and a few grey hairs in his short black beard.
He was looking at Archie intently when their eyes met, and the boy felt somewhat abashed. The passenger, however, did not remove his glance instantly; he spoke instead.
“You’ve never been to sea before, have you?”
“No, sir; never been off the land till a week ago.”
“Going to seek your fortune?”
“Yes; I’m going tomakemy fortune.”
“Bravo! I hope you will.”
“What’s to hinder me?”
“Nothing; oh, nothing much! Everybody doesn’t though. But you seem to have a bit of go in you.”
“Are you going to make yours?” said Archie.
The stranger laughed.
“No,” he replied. “Unluckily, perhaps, mine was made for me. I’ve been out before too, and I’m going again to see things.”
“You’re going in quest of adventure?”
“I suppose that is really it. That is how the story-books put it, anyhow. But I don’t expect to meet with adventures like Sinbad the Sailor, you know; and I don’t think I would like to have a little old man of the sea with his little old legs round my neck.”
“Australia is a very wonderful place, isn’t it?”
“Yes; wonderfully wonderful. Everything is upside-down there, you know. To begin with, the people walk with their heads downwards. Some of the trees are as tall as the moon, and at certain seasons of the year the bark comes tumbling off them like rolls of shoeleather. Others are shaped like bottles, others again have heads of waving grass, and others have ferns for tops. There are trees, too, that drop all their leaves to give the flowers a chance; and these are so brilliantly red, and so numerous, that the forest where they grow looks all on fire. Well, many of the animals walk or jump on two legs, instead of running on four. Does that interest you?”
“Yes. Tell me something more about birds.”
“Well, ducks are everywhere in Australia, and many kinds are as big as geese. They seem to thrive. And ages ago, it is said by the natives, the moles in Australia got tired of living in the dark, and held a meeting above-ground, and determined to live a different mode of life. So they grew longer claws, and short, broad, flat tails, and bills like ducks, and took to the water, and have been happy ever since.
“Well, there are black swans in abundance; and though it is two or three years since I was out last, I cannot forget a beautiful bird, something betwixt a pheasant and peacock, and the cock’s tail is his especial delight. It is something really to be proud of, and at a distance looks like a beautiful lyre, strings and all. The cockatoos swarm around the trees, and scream and laugh at the lyre-bird giving himself airs, but I daresay this is all envy. The hen bird is not a beauty, but her chief delight is to watch the antics and attitudes of her lord and master as he struts about making love and fun to her time about, at one moment singing a kind of low, sweet song, at another mocking every sound that is heard in the forest, every noise made by man or bird or beast. No wonder the female lyre-bird thinks her lord the cleverest and most beautiful creature in the world!
“Then there is a daft-looking kingfisher, all head and bill, and wondering eyes, who laughs like a jackass, and makes you laugh to hear him laugh. So loud does he laugh at times that his voice drowns every other sound in the forest.
“There is a bird eight feet high, partly cassowary, partly ostrich, that when attacked kicks like a horse, or more like a cow, because it kicks sideways. But if I were to sit here till our good ship reached the Cape, I could not tell you about half the curious, beautiful, and ridiculous creatures and things you will find in Australia if you move much about. I do think that that country beats all creation for the gorgeousness of its wild birds and wild flowers; and if things do seem a bit higgledy-piggledy at first, you soon settle down to it, and soon tire wondering at anything.
“But,” continued the stranger, “with all their peculiarities, the birds and beasts are satisfied with their get-up, and pleased with their surroundings, although all day long in the forests the cockatoos, and parrots, and piping crows, and lyre-birds do little else but joke and chaff one another because they all look so comical.
“Yes, lad, Australia you will find is a country of contrarieties, and the only wonder to me is that the rivers don’t all run up-hill instead of running down; and mind, they are sometimes broader at their sources than they are at their ends.”
“There is plenty of gold there?” asked Archie.
“Oh, yes, any amount; but—”
“But what, sir?”
“The real difficulty—in fact, the only difficulty—is the finding of it.”
“But that, I suppose, can be got over.”
“Come along with me up on deck, and we’ll talk matters over. It is hot and stuffy down here; besides, they are going to lay the cloth.”
Arrived at the quarterdeck, the stranger took hold of Archie’s arm, as if he had known him all his life.
“Now,” he said, “my name is Vesey, generally called Captain Vesey, because I never did anything that I know of to merit the title. I’ve been in an army or two in different parts of the globe as a free lance, you know.”
“How nice!”
“Oh, delightful!” said Captain Vesey, though from the tone of his voice Archie was doubtful as to his meaning. “Well,” he added, “I own a yacht, now waiting for me, I believe, at the Cape of Good Hope, if she isn’t sunk, or burned, or something. And your tally?”
“My what, sir?”
“Your tally, your name, and the rest of it?”
“Archie Broadbent, son of Squire Broadbent, of Burley Old Farm, Northumberland.”
“What! you a son of Charlie Broadbent? Yankee Charlie, as we used to call him at the club. Well, well, well, wonders will never cease; and it only shows how small the world is, after all.”
“And you used to know my father, sir?”
“My dear boy, I promised myself the pleasure of calling on him at Burley. I’ve only been home for two months, however; and I heard—well, boy, I needn’t mince matters—I heard your father had been unfortunate, and had left his place, and gone nobody could tell me whither.”
“No,” said Archie, laughing, “it isn’t quite so bad as all that; and it is bound to come right in the end.”
“You are talking very hopefully, lad. I could trace a resemblance in your face to someone I knew the very moment I sat down. And there is something like the same cheerful ring in your voice there used to be in his. You really are a chip of the old block.”
“So they say.” And Archie laughed again, pleased by this time.
“But, you know, lad, you are very young to be going away to seek your fortune.”
“I’ll get over that, sir.”
“I hope so. Of course, you won’t go pottering after gold!”
“I don’t know. If I thought I would find lots, I would go like a shot.”
“Well, take my advice, and don’t. There, I do not want to discourage you; but you better turn your mind to farming—to squatting.”
“That wouldn’t be very genteel, would it?”
“Genteel! Why, lad, if you’re going to go in for genteelity, you’d best have stayed at home.”
“Well, but I have an excellent education. I can write like copper-plate. I am a fair hand at figures, and well up in Latin and Greek; and—”
“Ha! ha! ha!” Captain Vesey laughed aloud. “Latin and Greek, eh? You must keep that to yourself, boy.”
“And,” continued Archie boldly, “I have a whole lot of capital introductions. I’m sure to get into a good office in Sydney; and in a few years—”
Archie stopped short, because by the light that streamed from the skylight he could see that Captain Vesey was looking at him half-wonderingly, but evidently amused.
“Go on,” said the captain.
“Not a word more,” said Archie doggedly.
“Finish your sentence, lad.”
“I shan’t. There!”
“Well, I’ll do it for you. You’ll get into a delightful office, with mahogany writing-desks and stained glass windows, Turkey carpet and an easy-chair. Your employer will take you out in his buggy every Sunday to dine with him; and after a few years, as you say, he’ll make you a co-partner; and you’ll end by marrying his daughter, and live happy ever after.”
“You’re laughing at me, sir. I’ll go down below.”
“Yes, I’m laughing at you, because you’re only a greenhorn; and it is as well that I should squeeze a little of the lime-juice out of you as anyone else. No, don’t go below. Mind, I was your father’s friend.”
“Yes,” pouted poor Archie; “but you don’t appear to be mine. You are throwing cold water over my hopes; you are smashing my idols.”
“A very pretty speech, Archie Broadbent. But mind you this—a hut on solid ground is better far than a castle in the air. And it is better that I should storm and capsize your cloud-castle, than that an absolute stranger did so.”
“Well, I suppose you are right. Forgive me for being cross.”
“Spoken like his father’s son,” said Captain Vesey, grasping and shaking the hand that Archie extended to him. “Now we know each other. Ding! ding! ding! there goes the dinner-bell. Sit next to me.”
Chapter Twelve.“Keep on Your Cap. I was once a Poor Man Myself.”The voyage out was a long, even tedious one; but as it has but little bearing on the story I forbear to describe it at length.The ship had a passenger for Madeira, parcels for Ascension and Saint Helena, and she lay in at the Cape for a whole week.Here Captain Vesey left the vessel, bidding Archie a kind farewell, after dining with him at the Fountain, and roaming with him all over the charming Botanical Gardens.“I’ve an idea we’ll meet again,” he said as he bade him adieu. “If God spares me, I’ll be sure to visit Sydney in a year or two, and I hope to find you doing well. You’ll know if my little yacht, theBarracouta, comes in, and I know you’ll come off and see me. I hope to find you with as good a coat on your back as you have now.”Then theDugongsailed away again; but the time now seemed longer to Archie than ever, for in Captain Vesey he really had lost a good friend—a friend who was all the more valuable because he spoke the plain, unvarnished truth; and if in doing so one or two of the young man’s cherished idols were brought tumbling down to the ground, it was all the better for the young man. It showed those idols had feet of clay, else a little cold water thrown over them would hardly have had such an effect. I am sorry to say, however, that no sooner had the captain left the ship, than Archie set about carefully collecting the pieces of those said idols and patching them up again.“After all,” he thought to himself, “this Captain Vesey, jolly fellow as he is, never had to struggle with fortune as I shall do; and I don’t think he has the same pluck in him that my father has, and that people say I have. We’ll see, anyhow. Other fellows have been fortunate in a few years, why shouldn’t I? ‘In a few years?’ Yes, these are the very words Captain Vesey laughed at me for. ‘In a few years?’ To be sure. And why not? Whatisthe good of a fortune to a fellow after he gets old, and all worn down with gout and rheumatism? ‘Cheer, boys, cheer;’ I’m going in to win.”How slow the ship sailed now, apparently; and when it did blow it usually blew the wrong way, and she would have to stand off and on, or go tack and half-tack against it, like a man with one long leg and one short. But she was becalmed more than once, and this did seem dreadful. It put Archie in mind of a man going to sleep in the middle of his work, which is not at all the correct thing to do.Well, there is nothing like a sailing ship after all for teaching one the virtue of patience; and at last Archie settled down to his sea life. He was becoming quite a sailor—as hard as the wheel-spokes, as brown as the binnacle. He was quite a favourite with the captain and officers, and with all hands fore and aft. Indeed he was very often in the forecastle or galley of an evening listening to the men’s yarns or songs, and sometimes singing a verse or two himself.He was just beginning to think theDugongwas Vanderdecken’s ship, and that she never would make port at all, when one day at dinner he noticed that the captain was unusually cheerful.“In four or five days more, please God,” said he, “we’ll be safe in Sydney.”Archie almost wished he had not known this, for these four or five days were the longest of any he had yet passed. He had commenced to worship his patched-up idols again, and felt happier now, and more full of hope and certainty of fortune than he had done during the whole voyage.Sometimes they sighted land. Once or twice birds flew on board—such bright, pretty birds too they looked. And birds also went wheeling and whirring about the ship—gulls, the like of which he had never seen before. They were more elegant in shape and purer in colour than ours, and their voices were clear and ringing.Dick Whittington construed words out of the sound of the chiming bells. Therefore it is not at all wonderful that Archie was pleased to believe that some of these beautiful birds were screaming him a welcome to the land of gold.Just at or near the end of the voyage half a gale of wind blew the ship considerably out of her course. Then the breeze went round to fair again, the sea went down, and the birds came back; and one afternoon a shout was heard from the foretop that made Archie’s heart jump for very joy.“Land ho!”That same evening, as the sun was setting behind the Blue Mountains, leaving a gorgeous splendour of cloud-scenery that may be equalled, but is never surpassed in any country, theDugongsailed slowly into Sydney harbour, and cast anchor.At last! Yes, at last. Here were the golden gates of the El Dorado that were to lead the ambitious boy to fortune, and all the pleasures fortune is capable of bestowing.Archie had fancied that Sydney would prove to be a very beautiful place; but not in his wildest imaginings had he conjured up a scene of such surpassing loveliness as that which now lay before him, and around him as well.On the town itself his eye naturally first rested. There it lay, miles upon miles of houses, towers, and steeples, spread out along the coast, and rising inland. The mountains and hills beyond, their rugged grandeur softened and subdued in the purple haze of the day’s dying glory; the sky above, with its shades of orange, saffron, crimson, opal, and grey; and the rocks, to right and left in the nearer distance, with their dreamy clouds of foliage, from which peeped many a lordly mansion, many a fairy-like palace. He hardly noticed the forests of masts; he was done with ships, done with masts, for a time at least; but his inmost heart responded to the distant hum of city life, that came gently stealing over the waters, mingling with the chime of evening bells, and the music of the happy sea-gulls.Would he, could he, get on shore to-night? “No,” the first officer replied, “not before another day.”So he stood on deck, or walked about, never thinking of food—what is food or drink to a youth who lives on hope?—till the gloaming shades gave place to night, till the southern stars shone over the hills and harbour, and strings upon strings of lamps and lights were hung everywhere across the city above and below.Now the fairy scene is changed. Archie is on shore. It is the forenoon of another day, and the sun is warm though not uncomfortably hot. There is so much that is bracing and invigorating in the very air, that he longs to be doing something at once. Longs to commence laying the foundation-stone of that temple of fortune which—let Captain Vesey say what he likes—he, Archie Broadbent, is bent upon building.He has dressed himself in his very English best. His clothes are new and creaseless, his gloves are spotless, his black silk hat immaculate, the cambric handkerchief that peeps coyly from his breast pocket is whiter than the snow, his boots fit like gloves, and shine as softly black as his hat itself, and his cane even must be the envy of every young man he meets.Strange to say, however, no one appears to take a very great deal of notice of him, though, as he glances towards the shop windows, he can see as if in a mirror that one or two passengers have looked back and smiled. But it couldn’t surely have been at him? Impossible!The people, however, are apparently all very active and very busy, though cool, with a self-possession that he cannot help envying, and which he tries to imitate without any marked degree of success.There is an air of luxury and refinement about many of the buildings that quite impresses the young man; but he cannot help noticing that there is also a sort of business air about the streets which he hardly expected to find, and which reminds him forcibly of Glasgow and Manchester. He almost wishes it had been otherwise.He marches on boldly enough.Archie feels as if on a prospecting tour—prospecting for gold. Of course he is going to make his fortune, but how is he going to begin? That is the awkward part of the business. If he could once get in the thin end of the wedge he would quickly drive it home.“There is nothing like ambition. If we steer a steady course.”Of course there isn’t. But staring into a china-shop window will do him little good. I do not believe he saw anything in that window however. Only, on turning away from it, his foot goes splash into a pool of dirty water on the pavement, or rather on what ought to be a pavement. That boot is ruined for the day, and this reminds him that Sydney streets arenotpaved with gold, but with very unromantic matter-of-fact mud. Happy thought! he will dine.The waiters are very polite, but not obsequious, and he makes a hearty meal, and feels more at home.Shall he tip this waiter fellow? Is it the correct thing to tip waiters? Will the waiter think him green if he does, or green if he doesn’t?These questions, trifling though they may appear, really annoyed Archie; but he erred on the right side, and did tip the waiter—well too. And the waiter brightened up, and asked him if he would like to see a playbill.Then this reminded Archie that he might as well call on some of the people to whom he had introductions. So he pulled out a small bundle of letters, and he asked the waiter where this, that, and t’other street was; and the waiter brought a map, and gave him so many hints, that when he found himself on the street again he did not feel half so foreign. He had something to do now, something in view. Besides he had dined.“Yes, he’d better drive,” he said to himself, “it would look better.” He lifted a finger, and a hansom rattled along, and drew up by the kerb. He had not expected to find cabs in Sydney. His card-case was handy, and his first letter also.He might have taken a ’bus or tram. There were plenty passing, and very like Glasgow ’buses they were too; from the John with the ribbons to the cad at the rear. But a hansom certainly looked more aristocratic.Aristocratic? Yes. But were there any aristocrats in Sydney? Was there any real blue blood in the place? He had not answered those questions to his satisfaction, when the hansom stopped so suddenly that he fell forward.“Wait,” he said to the driver haughtily.“Certainly, sir.”Archie did not observe, however, the grimace the Jehu made to another cabman, as he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, else he would hardly have been pleased.There was quite a business air about the office into which the young man ushered himself, but no one took much notice of him. If he had had an older face under that brand-new hat, they might have been more struck with his appearance.“Ahem! Aw—!” Archie began.“One minute, sir,” said the clerk nearest him. “Fives in forty thousand? Fives in forty are eight—eight thousand.”The clerk advanced pen in mouth.“Do you come from Jenkins’s about those bills?”“No, I come from England; and I’ve a letter of introduction to yourmaster.” Archie brought the last word out with a bang.“Mr Berry isn’t in. Will you leave a message?”“No, thank you.”“As you please.”Archie was going off, when the clerk called after him, “Here is Mr Berry himself, sir.”A tall, brown-faced, elderly gentleman, with very white hair and pleasant smile. He took Archie into the office, bade him be seated, and slowly read the letter; then he approached the young man and shook hands. The hand felt like a dead fish’s tail in Archie’s, and somehow the smile had vanished.“I’m really glad to see your father’s son,” he said. “Sorry though to hear that he has had a run of bad luck. Very bad luck it must be, too,” he added, “to let you come out here.”“Indeed, sir; but I mean to make my for—that is, I want to make my living.”“Ay, young man, living’s more like it; and I wish I could help you. There’s a wave of depression over this side of our little island at present, and I don’t know that any office in town has a genteel situation to offer you.”Archie’s soul-heat sank a degree or two.“You think, sir, that—”“I think that you would have done better at home. It would be cruel of me not to tell you the truth. Now I’ll give you an example. We advertised for a clerk just a week since—”“I wish I’d been here.”“My young friend, you wouldn’t have had the ghost of a chance. We had five-and-thirty to pick and choose from, and we took the likeliest. I’m really sorry. If anything should turn up, where shall I communicate?”Where should he communicate? And this was his father’s best friend, from whom the too sanguine father expected Archie would have an invitation to dinner at once, and a general introduction to Sydney society.“Oh, it is no great matter about communicating, Mr Berry; aw!—no matter at all! I can afford to wait a bit and look round me. I—aw!—good morning, sir.”Away stalked the young Northumbrian, like a prince of the blood.“A chip of the old block,” muttered Mr Berry, as he resumed his desk work. “Poor lad, he’ll have to come down a peg though.”The cabby sprang towards the young nob.“Where next, sir?”“Grindlay’s.”Archie was not more successful here, nor anywhere else.But at the end of a week, during which time he had tried as hard as any young man had ever tried before in Sydney or any other city to find some genteel employment, he made a wise resolve; viz, to go into lodgings.He found that living in a hotel, though very cheerful, made a terrible hole in his purse; so he brought himself “down a peg” by the simple process of “going up” nearer the sky.Here is the explanation of this paradox. It was Archie’s custom to spend his forenoons looking for something to do, and his evenings walking in the suburbs.Poor, lonely lad, that never a soul in the city cared for, any more than if he had been a stray cat, he found it wearisome, heart-breaking work wandering about the narrow, twisting streets and getting civilly snubbed. He felt more of a gentleman when dining. Afterwards his tiredness quite left him, and hope swelled his heart once more. So out he would go and away—somewhere, anywhere; it did not matter so long as he could see woods, and water, and houses. Oh, such lovely suburban villas, with cool verandahs, round which flowering creepers twined, and lawns shaded by dark green waving banana trees, beneath which he could ofttimes hear the voices of merry children, or the tinkle of the light guitar. He would give reins to his fancy then, and imagine things—such sweet things!Yes, he would own one of the biggest and most delightful of these mansions; he should keep fleet horses, a beautiful carriage, a boat—he must have a boat, or should it be a gondola? Yes, that would be nicer and newer. In this boat, when the moonlight silvered the water, he would glide over the bay, returning early to his happy home. His bonnie sister should be there, his brother Rupert—the student—his mother, and his hero, that honest, bluff, old father of his. What a dear, delightful dream! No wonder he did not care to return to the realities of his city life till long after the sun had set over the hills, and the stars were twinkling down brighter and lovelier far than those lights he had so admired the night his ship arrived.He was returning slowly one evening and was close to the city, but in a rather lonely place, when he noticed something dark under the shade of a tree, and heard a girl’s voice say:“Dearie me! as missus says; but ain’t I jolly tired just!”“Who is that?” said Archie.“On’y me, sir; on’y Sarah. Don’t be afear’d. I ain’t a larrikin. Help this ’ere box on my back like a good chummie.”“It’s too heavy for your slight shoulders,” quoth gallant Archie. “I don’t mind carrying it a bit.”“What, a gent like you! Why, sir, you’re greener than they make ’em round here!”“I’m from England.”“Ho, ho! Well, that accounts for the milk. So’m I from Hengland. This way, chummie.”They hadn’t far to go.“My missus lives two story up, top of a ware’us, and I’ve been to the station for that ’ere box. She do take it out o’ me for all the wage. She do.”Archie carried the box up the steep stairs, and Sarah’s mistress herself opened the door and held a candle. A thin, weary-looking body, with whom Sarah seemed to be on the best and most friendly terms.“Brought my young man,” said Sarah. “Ain’t he a smartie? But, heigho!sogreen!Younever!”“Come in a minute, sir, and rest you. Never mind this silly girl.”Archie did go in a minute; five, ten, ay fifteen, and by that time he had not only heard all this ex-policeman’s wife’s story, but taken a semi-attic belonging to her.And he felt downright independent and happy when next day he took possession.For now he would have time to really look round, and it was a relief to his mind that he would not be spending much money.Archie could write home cheerfully now. He was sure that something would soon turn up, something he could accept, and which would not be derogatory to the son of a Northumbrian squire. More than one influential member of commercial society had promised “to communicate with him at the very earliest moment.”But, alas! weeks flew by, and weeks went into months, and no more signs of the something were apparent than he had seen on the second day of his arrival.Archie was undoubtedly “a game un,” as Sarah called him; but his heart began to feel very heavy indeed.Living as cheaply as he could, his money would go done at last. What then? Write home for more? He shuddered to think of such a thing. If his first friend, Captain Vesey, had only turned up now, he would have gone and asked to be taken as a hand before the mast. But Captain Vesey did not.A young man cannot be long in Sydney without getting into a set. Archie did, and who could blame him. They were not a rich set, nor a very fast set; but they had a morsel of a club-room of their own. They formed friendships, took strolls together, went occasionally to the play, and often had little “adventures” about town, the narratives of which, when retailed in the club, found ready listeners, and of course were stretched to the fullest extent of importance.They really were not bad fellows, and would have done Archie a good turn if they could. But they could not. They laughed a deal at first at his English notions and ideas; but gradually Archie got over his greenness, and began to settle down to colonial life, and would have liked Sydney very much indeed if he had only had something to do.The ex-policeman’s wife was very kind to her lodger. So was Sarah; though she took too many freedoms of speech with him, which tended to lower his English squirearchical dignity very much. But, to do her justice, Sarah did not mean any harm.Only once did Archie venture to ask about the ex-policeman. “What did he do?”“Oh, he drinks!” said Sarah, as quietly as if drinking were a trade of some kind. Archie asked no more.Rummaging in a box one day, Archie found his last letter of introduction. It had been given him by Uncle Ramsay.“You’ll find him a rough and right sort of a stick,” his uncle had said. “Hewasmy steward, now he is a wealthy man, and can knock down his cheque for many thousands.”Archie dressed in his best and walked right away that afternoon to find the address.It was one of the very villas he had often passed, in a beautiful place close by the water-side.What would be his reception here?This question was soon put at rest.He rang the bell, and was ushered into a luxuriously-furnished room; a room that displayed more richness than taste.A very beautiful girl—some thirteen years of age perhaps—got up from a grand piano, and stood before him.Archie was somewhat taken aback, but bowed as composedly as he could.“Surely,” he thought, “shecannot be the daughter of the rough and right sort of a stick who had been steward to his uncle. He had never seen so sweet a face, such dreamy blue eyes, or such wealth of hair before.“Did you want to see papa? Sit down. I’ll go and find him.”“Will you take this letter to him?” said Archie.And the girl left, letter in hand.Ten minutes after the “rough stick” entered, whistling “Sally come up.”“Hullo! hullo!” he cried, “so here we are.”There he was without doubt—a big, red, jolly face, like a full moon orient, a loose merino jacket, no waistcoat or necktie, but a cricketer’s cap on the very back of his bushy head. He struck Archie a friendly slap on the back.“Keep on yer cap,” he shouted, “I was once a poor man myself.”Archie was too surprised and indignant to speak.“Well, well, well,” said Mr Winslow, “they do tell me wonders won’t never cease. What a whirligig of a world it is. One day I’m cleanin’ a gent’s boots. Gent is a capting of a ship. Next day gent’s nephew comes to me to beg for a job. Say, young man, what’ll ye drink?”“I didn’t come todrink, Mr Winslow, neither did I come tobeg.”“Whew-ew-ew,” whistled the quondam steward, “here’s pride; here’s a touch o’ the old country. Why, young un, I might have made you my under-gardener.”The girl at this moment entered the room. She had heard the last sentence.“Papa!” she remonstrated. Then she glided out by the casement window.Burning blushes suffused Archie’s cheeks as he hurried over the lawn soon after; angry tears were in his eyes. His hand was on the gate-latch when he felt a light touch on his arm. It was the girl.“Don’t be angry with poor papa,” she said, almost beseechingly.“No, no,” Archie cried, hardly knowing what he did say. “What is your name?”“Etheldene.”“What a beautiful name! I—I will never forget it. Good-bye.”He ran home with the image of the child in his mind—on his brain.Sarah—plain Sarah—met him at the top of the stairs. He brushed past her.“La! but ye does look glum,” said Sarah.Archie locked his door. He did not want to see even Sarah—homely Sarah—that night.
The voyage out was a long, even tedious one; but as it has but little bearing on the story I forbear to describe it at length.
The ship had a passenger for Madeira, parcels for Ascension and Saint Helena, and she lay in at the Cape for a whole week.
Here Captain Vesey left the vessel, bidding Archie a kind farewell, after dining with him at the Fountain, and roaming with him all over the charming Botanical Gardens.
“I’ve an idea we’ll meet again,” he said as he bade him adieu. “If God spares me, I’ll be sure to visit Sydney in a year or two, and I hope to find you doing well. You’ll know if my little yacht, theBarracouta, comes in, and I know you’ll come off and see me. I hope to find you with as good a coat on your back as you have now.”
Then theDugongsailed away again; but the time now seemed longer to Archie than ever, for in Captain Vesey he really had lost a good friend—a friend who was all the more valuable because he spoke the plain, unvarnished truth; and if in doing so one or two of the young man’s cherished idols were brought tumbling down to the ground, it was all the better for the young man. It showed those idols had feet of clay, else a little cold water thrown over them would hardly have had such an effect. I am sorry to say, however, that no sooner had the captain left the ship, than Archie set about carefully collecting the pieces of those said idols and patching them up again.
“After all,” he thought to himself, “this Captain Vesey, jolly fellow as he is, never had to struggle with fortune as I shall do; and I don’t think he has the same pluck in him that my father has, and that people say I have. We’ll see, anyhow. Other fellows have been fortunate in a few years, why shouldn’t I? ‘In a few years?’ Yes, these are the very words Captain Vesey laughed at me for. ‘In a few years?’ To be sure. And why not? Whatisthe good of a fortune to a fellow after he gets old, and all worn down with gout and rheumatism? ‘Cheer, boys, cheer;’ I’m going in to win.”
How slow the ship sailed now, apparently; and when it did blow it usually blew the wrong way, and she would have to stand off and on, or go tack and half-tack against it, like a man with one long leg and one short. But she was becalmed more than once, and this did seem dreadful. It put Archie in mind of a man going to sleep in the middle of his work, which is not at all the correct thing to do.
Well, there is nothing like a sailing ship after all for teaching one the virtue of patience; and at last Archie settled down to his sea life. He was becoming quite a sailor—as hard as the wheel-spokes, as brown as the binnacle. He was quite a favourite with the captain and officers, and with all hands fore and aft. Indeed he was very often in the forecastle or galley of an evening listening to the men’s yarns or songs, and sometimes singing a verse or two himself.
He was just beginning to think theDugongwas Vanderdecken’s ship, and that she never would make port at all, when one day at dinner he noticed that the captain was unusually cheerful.
“In four or five days more, please God,” said he, “we’ll be safe in Sydney.”
Archie almost wished he had not known this, for these four or five days were the longest of any he had yet passed. He had commenced to worship his patched-up idols again, and felt happier now, and more full of hope and certainty of fortune than he had done during the whole voyage.
Sometimes they sighted land. Once or twice birds flew on board—such bright, pretty birds too they looked. And birds also went wheeling and whirring about the ship—gulls, the like of which he had never seen before. They were more elegant in shape and purer in colour than ours, and their voices were clear and ringing.
Dick Whittington construed words out of the sound of the chiming bells. Therefore it is not at all wonderful that Archie was pleased to believe that some of these beautiful birds were screaming him a welcome to the land of gold.
Just at or near the end of the voyage half a gale of wind blew the ship considerably out of her course. Then the breeze went round to fair again, the sea went down, and the birds came back; and one afternoon a shout was heard from the foretop that made Archie’s heart jump for very joy.
“Land ho!”
That same evening, as the sun was setting behind the Blue Mountains, leaving a gorgeous splendour of cloud-scenery that may be equalled, but is never surpassed in any country, theDugongsailed slowly into Sydney harbour, and cast anchor.
At last! Yes, at last. Here were the golden gates of the El Dorado that were to lead the ambitious boy to fortune, and all the pleasures fortune is capable of bestowing.
Archie had fancied that Sydney would prove to be a very beautiful place; but not in his wildest imaginings had he conjured up a scene of such surpassing loveliness as that which now lay before him, and around him as well.
On the town itself his eye naturally first rested. There it lay, miles upon miles of houses, towers, and steeples, spread out along the coast, and rising inland. The mountains and hills beyond, their rugged grandeur softened and subdued in the purple haze of the day’s dying glory; the sky above, with its shades of orange, saffron, crimson, opal, and grey; and the rocks, to right and left in the nearer distance, with their dreamy clouds of foliage, from which peeped many a lordly mansion, many a fairy-like palace. He hardly noticed the forests of masts; he was done with ships, done with masts, for a time at least; but his inmost heart responded to the distant hum of city life, that came gently stealing over the waters, mingling with the chime of evening bells, and the music of the happy sea-gulls.
Would he, could he, get on shore to-night? “No,” the first officer replied, “not before another day.”
So he stood on deck, or walked about, never thinking of food—what is food or drink to a youth who lives on hope?—till the gloaming shades gave place to night, till the southern stars shone over the hills and harbour, and strings upon strings of lamps and lights were hung everywhere across the city above and below.
Now the fairy scene is changed. Archie is on shore. It is the forenoon of another day, and the sun is warm though not uncomfortably hot. There is so much that is bracing and invigorating in the very air, that he longs to be doing something at once. Longs to commence laying the foundation-stone of that temple of fortune which—let Captain Vesey say what he likes—he, Archie Broadbent, is bent upon building.
He has dressed himself in his very English best. His clothes are new and creaseless, his gloves are spotless, his black silk hat immaculate, the cambric handkerchief that peeps coyly from his breast pocket is whiter than the snow, his boots fit like gloves, and shine as softly black as his hat itself, and his cane even must be the envy of every young man he meets.
Strange to say, however, no one appears to take a very great deal of notice of him, though, as he glances towards the shop windows, he can see as if in a mirror that one or two passengers have looked back and smiled. But it couldn’t surely have been at him? Impossible!
The people, however, are apparently all very active and very busy, though cool, with a self-possession that he cannot help envying, and which he tries to imitate without any marked degree of success.
There is an air of luxury and refinement about many of the buildings that quite impresses the young man; but he cannot help noticing that there is also a sort of business air about the streets which he hardly expected to find, and which reminds him forcibly of Glasgow and Manchester. He almost wishes it had been otherwise.
He marches on boldly enough.
Archie feels as if on a prospecting tour—prospecting for gold. Of course he is going to make his fortune, but how is he going to begin? That is the awkward part of the business. If he could once get in the thin end of the wedge he would quickly drive it home.
“There is nothing like ambition. If we steer a steady course.”
Of course there isn’t. But staring into a china-shop window will do him little good. I do not believe he saw anything in that window however. Only, on turning away from it, his foot goes splash into a pool of dirty water on the pavement, or rather on what ought to be a pavement. That boot is ruined for the day, and this reminds him that Sydney streets arenotpaved with gold, but with very unromantic matter-of-fact mud. Happy thought! he will dine.
The waiters are very polite, but not obsequious, and he makes a hearty meal, and feels more at home.
Shall he tip this waiter fellow? Is it the correct thing to tip waiters? Will the waiter think him green if he does, or green if he doesn’t?
These questions, trifling though they may appear, really annoyed Archie; but he erred on the right side, and did tip the waiter—well too. And the waiter brightened up, and asked him if he would like to see a playbill.
Then this reminded Archie that he might as well call on some of the people to whom he had introductions. So he pulled out a small bundle of letters, and he asked the waiter where this, that, and t’other street was; and the waiter brought a map, and gave him so many hints, that when he found himself on the street again he did not feel half so foreign. He had something to do now, something in view. Besides he had dined.
“Yes, he’d better drive,” he said to himself, “it would look better.” He lifted a finger, and a hansom rattled along, and drew up by the kerb. He had not expected to find cabs in Sydney. His card-case was handy, and his first letter also.
He might have taken a ’bus or tram. There were plenty passing, and very like Glasgow ’buses they were too; from the John with the ribbons to the cad at the rear. But a hansom certainly looked more aristocratic.
Aristocratic? Yes. But were there any aristocrats in Sydney? Was there any real blue blood in the place? He had not answered those questions to his satisfaction, when the hansom stopped so suddenly that he fell forward.
“Wait,” he said to the driver haughtily.
“Certainly, sir.”
Archie did not observe, however, the grimace the Jehu made to another cabman, as he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, else he would hardly have been pleased.
There was quite a business air about the office into which the young man ushered himself, but no one took much notice of him. If he had had an older face under that brand-new hat, they might have been more struck with his appearance.
“Ahem! Aw—!” Archie began.
“One minute, sir,” said the clerk nearest him. “Fives in forty thousand? Fives in forty are eight—eight thousand.”
The clerk advanced pen in mouth.
“Do you come from Jenkins’s about those bills?”
“No, I come from England; and I’ve a letter of introduction to yourmaster.” Archie brought the last word out with a bang.
“Mr Berry isn’t in. Will you leave a message?”
“No, thank you.”
“As you please.”
Archie was going off, when the clerk called after him, “Here is Mr Berry himself, sir.”
A tall, brown-faced, elderly gentleman, with very white hair and pleasant smile. He took Archie into the office, bade him be seated, and slowly read the letter; then he approached the young man and shook hands. The hand felt like a dead fish’s tail in Archie’s, and somehow the smile had vanished.
“I’m really glad to see your father’s son,” he said. “Sorry though to hear that he has had a run of bad luck. Very bad luck it must be, too,” he added, “to let you come out here.”
“Indeed, sir; but I mean to make my for—that is, I want to make my living.”
“Ay, young man, living’s more like it; and I wish I could help you. There’s a wave of depression over this side of our little island at present, and I don’t know that any office in town has a genteel situation to offer you.”
Archie’s soul-heat sank a degree or two.
“You think, sir, that—”
“I think that you would have done better at home. It would be cruel of me not to tell you the truth. Now I’ll give you an example. We advertised for a clerk just a week since—”
“I wish I’d been here.”
“My young friend, you wouldn’t have had the ghost of a chance. We had five-and-thirty to pick and choose from, and we took the likeliest. I’m really sorry. If anything should turn up, where shall I communicate?”
Where should he communicate? And this was his father’s best friend, from whom the too sanguine father expected Archie would have an invitation to dinner at once, and a general introduction to Sydney society.
“Oh, it is no great matter about communicating, Mr Berry; aw!—no matter at all! I can afford to wait a bit and look round me. I—aw!—good morning, sir.”
Away stalked the young Northumbrian, like a prince of the blood.
“A chip of the old block,” muttered Mr Berry, as he resumed his desk work. “Poor lad, he’ll have to come down a peg though.”
The cabby sprang towards the young nob.
“Where next, sir?”
“Grindlay’s.”
Archie was not more successful here, nor anywhere else.
But at the end of a week, during which time he had tried as hard as any young man had ever tried before in Sydney or any other city to find some genteel employment, he made a wise resolve; viz, to go into lodgings.
He found that living in a hotel, though very cheerful, made a terrible hole in his purse; so he brought himself “down a peg” by the simple process of “going up” nearer the sky.
Here is the explanation of this paradox. It was Archie’s custom to spend his forenoons looking for something to do, and his evenings walking in the suburbs.
Poor, lonely lad, that never a soul in the city cared for, any more than if he had been a stray cat, he found it wearisome, heart-breaking work wandering about the narrow, twisting streets and getting civilly snubbed. He felt more of a gentleman when dining. Afterwards his tiredness quite left him, and hope swelled his heart once more. So out he would go and away—somewhere, anywhere; it did not matter so long as he could see woods, and water, and houses. Oh, such lovely suburban villas, with cool verandahs, round which flowering creepers twined, and lawns shaded by dark green waving banana trees, beneath which he could ofttimes hear the voices of merry children, or the tinkle of the light guitar. He would give reins to his fancy then, and imagine things—such sweet things!
Yes, he would own one of the biggest and most delightful of these mansions; he should keep fleet horses, a beautiful carriage, a boat—he must have a boat, or should it be a gondola? Yes, that would be nicer and newer. In this boat, when the moonlight silvered the water, he would glide over the bay, returning early to his happy home. His bonnie sister should be there, his brother Rupert—the student—his mother, and his hero, that honest, bluff, old father of his. What a dear, delightful dream! No wonder he did not care to return to the realities of his city life till long after the sun had set over the hills, and the stars were twinkling down brighter and lovelier far than those lights he had so admired the night his ship arrived.
He was returning slowly one evening and was close to the city, but in a rather lonely place, when he noticed something dark under the shade of a tree, and heard a girl’s voice say:
“Dearie me! as missus says; but ain’t I jolly tired just!”
“Who is that?” said Archie.
“On’y me, sir; on’y Sarah. Don’t be afear’d. I ain’t a larrikin. Help this ’ere box on my back like a good chummie.”
“It’s too heavy for your slight shoulders,” quoth gallant Archie. “I don’t mind carrying it a bit.”
“What, a gent like you! Why, sir, you’re greener than they make ’em round here!”
“I’m from England.”
“Ho, ho! Well, that accounts for the milk. So’m I from Hengland. This way, chummie.”
They hadn’t far to go.
“My missus lives two story up, top of a ware’us, and I’ve been to the station for that ’ere box. She do take it out o’ me for all the wage. She do.”
Archie carried the box up the steep stairs, and Sarah’s mistress herself opened the door and held a candle. A thin, weary-looking body, with whom Sarah seemed to be on the best and most friendly terms.
“Brought my young man,” said Sarah. “Ain’t he a smartie? But, heigho!sogreen!Younever!”
“Come in a minute, sir, and rest you. Never mind this silly girl.”
Archie did go in a minute; five, ten, ay fifteen, and by that time he had not only heard all this ex-policeman’s wife’s story, but taken a semi-attic belonging to her.
And he felt downright independent and happy when next day he took possession.
For now he would have time to really look round, and it was a relief to his mind that he would not be spending much money.
Archie could write home cheerfully now. He was sure that something would soon turn up, something he could accept, and which would not be derogatory to the son of a Northumbrian squire. More than one influential member of commercial society had promised “to communicate with him at the very earliest moment.”
But, alas! weeks flew by, and weeks went into months, and no more signs of the something were apparent than he had seen on the second day of his arrival.
Archie was undoubtedly “a game un,” as Sarah called him; but his heart began to feel very heavy indeed.
Living as cheaply as he could, his money would go done at last. What then? Write home for more? He shuddered to think of such a thing. If his first friend, Captain Vesey, had only turned up now, he would have gone and asked to be taken as a hand before the mast. But Captain Vesey did not.
A young man cannot be long in Sydney without getting into a set. Archie did, and who could blame him. They were not a rich set, nor a very fast set; but they had a morsel of a club-room of their own. They formed friendships, took strolls together, went occasionally to the play, and often had little “adventures” about town, the narratives of which, when retailed in the club, found ready listeners, and of course were stretched to the fullest extent of importance.
They really were not bad fellows, and would have done Archie a good turn if they could. But they could not. They laughed a deal at first at his English notions and ideas; but gradually Archie got over his greenness, and began to settle down to colonial life, and would have liked Sydney very much indeed if he had only had something to do.
The ex-policeman’s wife was very kind to her lodger. So was Sarah; though she took too many freedoms of speech with him, which tended to lower his English squirearchical dignity very much. But, to do her justice, Sarah did not mean any harm.
Only once did Archie venture to ask about the ex-policeman. “What did he do?”
“Oh, he drinks!” said Sarah, as quietly as if drinking were a trade of some kind. Archie asked no more.
Rummaging in a box one day, Archie found his last letter of introduction. It had been given him by Uncle Ramsay.
“You’ll find him a rough and right sort of a stick,” his uncle had said. “Hewasmy steward, now he is a wealthy man, and can knock down his cheque for many thousands.”
Archie dressed in his best and walked right away that afternoon to find the address.
It was one of the very villas he had often passed, in a beautiful place close by the water-side.
What would be his reception here?
This question was soon put at rest.
He rang the bell, and was ushered into a luxuriously-furnished room; a room that displayed more richness than taste.
A very beautiful girl—some thirteen years of age perhaps—got up from a grand piano, and stood before him.
Archie was somewhat taken aback, but bowed as composedly as he could.
“Surely,” he thought, “shecannot be the daughter of the rough and right sort of a stick who had been steward to his uncle. He had never seen so sweet a face, such dreamy blue eyes, or such wealth of hair before.
“Did you want to see papa? Sit down. I’ll go and find him.”
“Will you take this letter to him?” said Archie.
And the girl left, letter in hand.
Ten minutes after the “rough stick” entered, whistling “Sally come up.”
“Hullo! hullo!” he cried, “so here we are.”
There he was without doubt—a big, red, jolly face, like a full moon orient, a loose merino jacket, no waistcoat or necktie, but a cricketer’s cap on the very back of his bushy head. He struck Archie a friendly slap on the back.
“Keep on yer cap,” he shouted, “I was once a poor man myself.”
Archie was too surprised and indignant to speak.
“Well, well, well,” said Mr Winslow, “they do tell me wonders won’t never cease. What a whirligig of a world it is. One day I’m cleanin’ a gent’s boots. Gent is a capting of a ship. Next day gent’s nephew comes to me to beg for a job. Say, young man, what’ll ye drink?”
“I didn’t come todrink, Mr Winslow, neither did I come tobeg.”
“Whew-ew-ew,” whistled the quondam steward, “here’s pride; here’s a touch o’ the old country. Why, young un, I might have made you my under-gardener.”
The girl at this moment entered the room. She had heard the last sentence.
“Papa!” she remonstrated. Then she glided out by the casement window.
Burning blushes suffused Archie’s cheeks as he hurried over the lawn soon after; angry tears were in his eyes. His hand was on the gate-latch when he felt a light touch on his arm. It was the girl.
“Don’t be angry with poor papa,” she said, almost beseechingly.
“No, no,” Archie cried, hardly knowing what he did say. “What is your name?”
“Etheldene.”
“What a beautiful name! I—I will never forget it. Good-bye.”
He ran home with the image of the child in his mind—on his brain.
Sarah—plain Sarah—met him at the top of the stairs. He brushed past her.
“La! but ye does look glum,” said Sarah.
Archie locked his door. He did not want to see even Sarah—homely Sarah—that night.