[164]TOO FAR SOUTH.Thecaptain of theBoadicea—regular London and Australian trader—had long been the owner of a crotchet, or perhaps it would be nearer the mark to call it a theory. He was a comparatively young man, and after a few trips of eighty-nine, ninety, and ninety-six days respectively, he grew impatient; and at last, seeing an opportunity of putting his idea to the test, he determined to make the attempt.It was by no means a new theory; simply an expansion of an old one. Years ago the masters of theLightning,Red Jacket, and other clipper ships of renown, had successfully demonstrated that, instead of turning round the Cape of Good Hope as if it were a corner, in the old style, vessels bound to the Australian colonies would, if they kept on southward, be very likely to pick up a current of strong westerly winds which, although twice the distance might have to be sailed over, yet would take them to their destination far more quickly than by the usual route.But the master of theBoadiceacontended that none of these early exponents of ‘Great Circular sailing’ had[165]as yet gone far enough south, and that, at a still more distant point, a regular westerly wind-current, strong as a good-sized gale and as steady as a trade, without its fickleness, was to be met with which would shorten the average passage by at least ten days.Older shipmasters laughed, and, saying that they found the Roaring Forties quite strong enough for them, stuck to the regular merchantman track, not so old yet, they thought, nor so worn by the marks of their keels, as to require a fresh one. However, Captain Stewart had, by dint of long persuasion and perseverance, obtained permission from his owners to test practically his pet idea; and this was the reason that, on the thirty-fifth day out, theBoadicea, in place of running her easting down amongst the Forties like a Christian ship, with half a gale singing in the bellies of her topsails, and mountains of dark-blue water roaring rhythmically astern, found herself poking about close hauled, with, on every hand as far as vision extended, icebergs, varying in size and shape, from a respectable many-peaked island to a spireless dissenting chapel.We were very far indeed to the southward.And now there came both mist and snow,And it grew wondrous cold;And ice, mast high, came floating by,As green as emerald.Still our commander’s faith in his strong wind-streak was unshaken; albeit, for a week or more, light baffling airs, scarce sufficing to fill the stiffened canvas, had been our portion. It was, too, indeed, ‘wondrous cold,’ and the[166]necessity for keeping a close and unwearied look-out became every hour more apparent. Already we had had narrow escapes of coming into collision with bergs wandering aimlessly about, which, although wonderfully beautiful objects in the daytime, and at a distance, with the bright sunlight reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from their glistening surfaces, yet of a dark night were liable, with a touch almost, to send us in a twinkling to Davy Jones.The crew growled and shivered, and shivered and growled, making the while sarcastic inquiries as to the near vicinity of the South Pole, wishing in undertones that their skipper had been perched on the top of it before leading them into such cold quarters. As for myself, although rated as third mate, I was little more than a lad at the time, and thought the whole thing simply magnificent, hoping that we might penetrate still further into the unknown ‘regions of thick-ribbed ice’ ahead of us, whilst visions of a Southern Continent, bears, seals and walruses, floated through my imagination. To be sure I was well clothed and comfortably housed, which, perhaps, made all the difference. We are very apt to look at things one-sidedly, and with regard only to the character of our own particular surroundings. Man born of a woman is a more or less selfish animal. Every day the ‘wandering pearls of the sea,’ as someone has called them, seemed to become more plentiful, whilst, to add to our dilemma, a thick Antarctic fog, through which theBoadicea, with look-outs alow and aloft, crept like some great blind monster feeling its[167]way across the ocean, arose and hid everything from view.The only one on board with any experience of such latitudes was our chief officer, a rough New Englander, who had taken a couple of voyages to the Northern fisheries in a Nantucket whaler. Far, however, from giving himself airs on that account, he was probably the most anxious man in the ship’s company. He had not a particle of faith in the great theory; moreover, he had seen a vessel ‘ripped’ in Davis Sound, which none of his companions had.One evening, as if drawn up by some mighty hand, the fog lifted, disclosing the sun, cold, red, and angry-looking, glaring at us out of a sombre sky, and flushing the water and the bergs round about with a flood of purple light, on which our masts and rigging cast tremulous, long, black shadows, crossing and recrossing in a quivering maze, with big, shapeless blotches here and there for the sails. Suddenly a deeper, darker shadow fell athwart us; and there, not two oars’ lengths away, between ship and sun, rose an island.Men rubbed their eyes, and rubbed and looked again, but there it was, every stern outline standing in bold relief, a rough, ragged mass of barren, desolate rock, its summit covered with snow—still, indisputably land. Even as we gazed eagerly, wonderingly, themiragefaded away in a moment, as it had appeared, and the mist descended like a grey, heavy curtain, enveloping all things in its damp folds.[168]Presently it came on to snow. The standing rigging and running gear alike were coated with ice, whilst the canvas took the consistency of sheet-iron, and rang like glass when touched.Roaring fires were lit in oil drums, fore and aft, in forecastle and cuddy. Soon the smoke in both places was as thick as the fog on deck; a kind of damp, unwholesome warmth was engendered as the impromptu stoves grew red-hot; great half-frozen cockroaches, thinking that the tropics were at hand, crawled out of nooks and crannies; and it seemed at times a toss up whether our end should come by ice or fire.Most of our crew were Danes or Swedes, hardy and obedient men. If they had been British they would probably have attempted to compel the captain to alter his course. As it was, they simply put on all their available clothing and growled quietly. No matter what their nationality, all seamen growl; only some growl and work also.Now, all the watches and clocks on board stopped, and, refusing to start again, they were placed in the cook’s oven with a view to warming the works. But, in the excitement consequent upon fending off a huge berg, which threatened to crush us, they were done brown, and completely ruined. About this time the captain, thinking, perhaps, that his experiment had gone far enough, gave the order to square the yards. On going to the braces we found that the sheaves of the blocks were frozen to their pins and would not travel. Taking them to the winch, with much heaving, the yards at last swung,[169]creaking and groaning, round, whilst showers of icy fragments fell rattling on deck.It was almost a calm, the ship having barely steerage way upon her; but the barometer was falling, and it was judged prudent to shorten sail by putting theBoadiceaunder a couple of lower top-sails and fore and mizzen stay-sails.To stow each of the upper top-sails it took twenty-four men and two boys—nearly, in fact, the ship’s company; and, if the courses had not already been furled, I do not think we could ever have managed them. The foot-ropes were like glass, the reef-points as rigid as bar iron, and one’s hands, after a minute aloft, had no more feeling in them than the icy canvas they tried to grasp. Through the fog, as we slowly descended the slippery ratlines, we imagined we could see great bergs looming indistinctly; and in our strained ears echoed the ever-impending crash as the wind gradually freshened.It was a trying experience, even for the best prepared amongst us, this comparatively sudden transit from the tropics to twenty degrees below freezing point; and I firmly believe that, but for the unlimited supply of hot cocoa available day and night, at all hours, some of us would have given in. Spirits could be had for the asking, but no one seemed to care about them, even those known to be inveterate topers declining rum with something akin to disgust; perhaps the reason was that it became quite thick, and, when taken into the mouth, burned and excoriated both tongue and palate.The night of the day on which we had snugged the[170]Boadiceadown was dark as pitch, and you could feel the fog as it hung low and clingingly to everything. Some time in the middle watch the breeze died away, giving place to light, unsteady airs—catspaws almost—and occasional falls of snow.Imagine, if you can, the big ship creeping timorously and uncertainly through the thick Polar darkness and mist, a shapeless mass of yet thicker darkness, emitting here and there ruddy flashes of light, reflected momentarily back from snow-covered deck or coil of frozen rope. No sound breaks the silence except a gentle lap-lapping of water under her fore-foot as the canvas just fills enough to draw. Now snow falls, not deliberately, but with a soft, fleecy, rushing motion, which speedily fills up any inequalities about the decks, and would fill them from rail to rail if it lasted long. Presently a dozen bulky spectres move noiselessly around the galley door, which, being withdrawn, a warm glow streams out upon the watch come for hot cocoa.Imagine, too, just as the tired men are about to drag their half-frozen limbs below, a sudden deeper silence, and a strange feeling of warmth and calm pervading the ship; the sails giving one mighty creaking flap up there in the gloom; the crash and rattle of ice falling from their frozen folds, and a cluster of awe-struck, up-turned faces, shining pallidly in the glow of the galley fire, as theBoadicea, but for a slight roll, lies idle and at rest.Everyone knows and feels that something unusual has taken place, but no man there can say what it is. A[171]muttered order is heard, and in a minute a flood of vivid blue fire pours out into the darkness from the ship’s quarter, and a great subdued ‘Ah!’ runs fore and aft her, as, by its glare, we see tall, jagged cliffs, weird and ghastly in the strange light, towering far on high above our mast-heads, which appear to touch them.‘Get the deep-sea lead overboard!’ shouts the captain.‘Watch, there, watch!’ needlessly cry the men, as the line slips from their hands; and no bottom at one hundred fathoms.‘’Taint land at all,’ says the mate quietly. ‘I kin smell ice; an’ ef we don’t mind we may calculate to winter ’mongst it ’stead o’ makin’ tracks for the Antipodes. Lower the quarter-boat,’ he goes on, ‘an’ tie the ship up for the night, as, ef I ain’t mistook, we’re pooty nigh surrounded.’More bluelights are burned, and by their help and those of lanterns, theBoadicea, in a somewhat unnatural plight, is warped alongside a kind of ice jetty which stretches out from the main mass, and which, as if to save us the trouble of carrying out anchors, also to complete the resemblance to a pier, is furnished here and there with great knobs, to which we make fast our lines.If you will try and picture to yourself the scene I have described, you will, I think, be willing to admit that ship seldom entered stranger harbour in a stranger manner, or that the ‘sweet little cherub, sitting up aloft,’ who is supposed to keep a special look-out for[172]‘poor Jack,’ and who on the present occasion—all the more honour to him—must have felt colder even than the proverbial upper hank of a Greenlandman’s gib, seldom performed his duty better.Perhaps the all-pervading stillness was the thing that struck us most. The fenders, even, between the ship’s side and her novel pier scarcely gave a creak. And yet we were conscious that, somewhere, not very far away, it was beginning to blow freshly, although the sound fell on our ears but as a subdued, faint murmur, serving only to intensify the surrounding silence and hush.‘There’s a fire up there!’ exclaimed one of the men, presently. And, sure enough, a tiny, sickly flame appeared far away above us. It grew gradually larger and larger, till at length a long, broad streak of silver shot down the ice-mountains and fell athwart our decks, as a three-quarters-full moon, pale, washed-out and sickly-looking, shone for a minute through the low, black clouds hurrying swiftly across her face.A dull, grey dawn, at last, giving us just enough light to see what had happened. Ice everywhere!The ice was here, the ice was there,The ice was all around;and on every side rose huge bergs from one hundred feet to two hundred feet in height, and enclosing a space of barely a mile in circumference; an ice-bound lake, in fact; and, what struck a chill of terror to our hearts as we gazed, a lake without any exit. Look as we might, there[173]was not the least sign of an opening. Unwittingly we had sailed or drifted into a girdle of conjoined bergs. During the night the passage through which we entered had closed, and a cruel and stupendous barrier, hard as granite, slippery as glass, lay betwixt us and the outer ocean.Within, the water was as smooth as a mill-pond, the air was quite warm, and after breakfast all hands went ‘ashore’ to stretch their legs, look wonderingly up at our prison walls, and speculate on the chances of getting out.As I gazed around me at the strange scene—the snow-clad, towering peaks, glittering coldly in the yet feeble sun rays, the deep, shadow-laden valleys at their bases, and the perpendicular curtains of naked, steely-blue ice connecting one berg with the other—there came to my mind some long-forgotten lines of Montgomery’s, in which he depicts the awful fate of an ice-boundvessel:—There lies a vessel in that realm of frost,Not wrecked, not stranded, but for ever lost;Its keel embedded in the solid mass;Its glistening sails appear expanded glass;The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung.. . . . . . .Morn shall return, and noon, and eve, and nightMeet here with interchanging shade and light;But from that barque no timber shall decay;Of these cold forms no feature pass away.I had rather enjoyed the first days of our Antarctic experiences, but the pleasure began decidedly to pall with such a horrible contingency in view, and I was now[174]fully as anxious as anyone for clear water and a straight course.After a while, the gig was manned, and, with the captain and chief mate, we pulled round our harbour to a spot where, from the ship, a part of the ice-curtain seemed low and pretty accessible. So it had appeared; but when we reached it we found fifty feet of perpendicular slippery wall between our boat’s gunwale and the summit of the ridge we had hoped to mount.‘We’re in a pooty nice kind o’ a fix,’ said our mate, as we returned. ‘An’,’ glancing at the lowering sky, ‘I reckon it’s going to blow some, presently. Mebbe it’ll blow us out o’ these chunks of ice.’The captain made no reply, but he was evidently not in a very cheerful state of mind.That evening it did begin to blow very hard. Not that we felt it much, but we could hear the storm howling and roaring outside, and the thunderous breakers which dashed themselves against our sheltering bergs, causing them to tremble and pitch now and again as the mighty seas struck their bases. We had shifted theBoadiceaout to the extreme end of the jetty, double-banked our fenders, and taken every other precaution we could think of, in addition to standing-by through the night to cast off and sheet home at a minute’s notice.There was no more silence now; for, although we were all drifting away together about E. half S. before the wind, the bergs forming our enclosure ground against each other with an incessant rending, tearing[175]sound, which now, although seeming to foretell an early dissolution of partnership, filled us with terror lest some of them should topple over on the ship.The ship herself, no longer steady, was hove violently up and down with every motion of the bergs; whilst the great wooden fenders, cut from spare spars, were torn to splinters, and the hawsers surged round their icy mooring posts with a curious, screaming, intermittent noise, making us think that every moment they were about to part.Four bells in the morning watch had just struck when we heard a terrific crash rising high above the surrounding din, and the next instant a great wave came rushing over theBoadicea, filling her decks, nearly lifting her on to the ice, and then slamming her down with such force as to snap the hawsers like threads and smash the bulwarks to matchwood the whole length of the port side. Drifting away from our friendly jetty, we at once felt that our prison was broken up; for, now, the gale from which we had been so long sheltered howled and tore through the rigging, whilst cataracts of bitter cold water rushed in quick succession over the decks, and lumps of ice bumped up against theBoadicea’sbows and sides.‘Set the lower fore-top-sail and mizzen-stay-sail!’And now the slatting and banging of canvas, the rattle of iron sheets and hanks, the hoarse cries of the men as they staggered about the wet, slippery planking, together with the rending and smashing of[176]ice all around, made up a scene that defies description; whilst to lend it an additional weirdness, a ‘flare-up’ of oakum and tar, which had been run up to a lower-stuns’l boom-end, blazed wildly overhead like a great fierce eye looking down upon us out of the thick darkness. So closely were we beset, however, that, spite of the canvas, we soon found that we were simply drifting aimlessly about amidst immense fragments of capsized bergs, which threatened every moment to crush us. Indeed, we did get one squeeze that made the ship crack again, and whose after effect was seen by the fact that the cabin doors for the rest of the passage refused to close by a good six inches. Presently, grinding and scraping up alongside a small berg—or portion of a larger one, we cannot tell which—we make fast to it as well as we are able, and direct all our efforts to fending off its companions. As daylight approaches, we notice that the ice becomes rarer, and sails by at longer intervals; and as it breaks more fully out of a lowering yellowish sky a wild sight meets our eyes.The sea is dotted with bergs—small ones nodding and bobbing along, big ones gliding majestically before the wind, till, a pair of these latter colliding, down crumble spires and minarets, towers and pinnacles, suddenly as a child’s card-built house, sending up tall columns of water as they fall.It is not this spectacle, however, that brings forth a simultaneous shout from everyone on board, but[177]the appearance, as one berg gives a half-turn, of an object, hardly two hundred yards from our jibboom end, standing there, amidst all the wild commotion, steadfast, rugged and grim, with tall breakers curling up against its ice-surrounded, dark red cliffs, and falling back in showers of foam, showing milky-white in the morning gloom.It is land, surely! And, surely, we have seen those forbidding, snow-capped precipices before. It is the island of themirage, substantial enough this time, and in another ten minutes we shall be dashed to atoms against its surf-encircled base.The sight had a wondrous effect, and men who seemed incapable a minute before of stirring their stiffened limbs now hopped up the rigging like goats, and scampered along the deck with the top-sail halliards as if racing for a wager, in obedience to the order to cast off and make sail.‘Hard a port!’ and theBoadicea’spoop is splashed with spray from rocks and ice as she turns slowly from a jagged, honeycombed promontory, whilst her late consort goes headlong to destruction on its iron teeth.It is still blowing hard; but our captain is more than satisfied; and, under everything she can carry, theBoadicearushes, like a frightened stag, fast away, northwards and eastwards, out of those dismal seas of ice and fog, snow, and unknown islands, a very nightmare of navigation, into which one merchant skipper, at least, will never willingly venture again.[178]However, we, after all, perhaps, set our course on a higher parallel than anyone had done since Ross in ’41, followed the outline of a southern continent, whose volcanoes flamed to heaven from a lifeless, desolate land of ice and snow. And, as some compensation for our trouble and dangers, till we sighted the south end of Tasmania, we never had occasion to touch a rope, so steadily and strongly blew the fair wind.‘Seventy-five days—a rattlin’ good passage!’ exclaimed our Port Jackson pilot; and when he asked what had become of our bulwarks, and why the cuddy doors wouldn’t shut, we simply told him we had been ‘Too far south.’
Thecaptain of theBoadicea—regular London and Australian trader—had long been the owner of a crotchet, or perhaps it would be nearer the mark to call it a theory. He was a comparatively young man, and after a few trips of eighty-nine, ninety, and ninety-six days respectively, he grew impatient; and at last, seeing an opportunity of putting his idea to the test, he determined to make the attempt.
It was by no means a new theory; simply an expansion of an old one. Years ago the masters of theLightning,Red Jacket, and other clipper ships of renown, had successfully demonstrated that, instead of turning round the Cape of Good Hope as if it were a corner, in the old style, vessels bound to the Australian colonies would, if they kept on southward, be very likely to pick up a current of strong westerly winds which, although twice the distance might have to be sailed over, yet would take them to their destination far more quickly than by the usual route.
But the master of theBoadiceacontended that none of these early exponents of ‘Great Circular sailing’ had[165]as yet gone far enough south, and that, at a still more distant point, a regular westerly wind-current, strong as a good-sized gale and as steady as a trade, without its fickleness, was to be met with which would shorten the average passage by at least ten days.
Older shipmasters laughed, and, saying that they found the Roaring Forties quite strong enough for them, stuck to the regular merchantman track, not so old yet, they thought, nor so worn by the marks of their keels, as to require a fresh one. However, Captain Stewart had, by dint of long persuasion and perseverance, obtained permission from his owners to test practically his pet idea; and this was the reason that, on the thirty-fifth day out, theBoadicea, in place of running her easting down amongst the Forties like a Christian ship, with half a gale singing in the bellies of her topsails, and mountains of dark-blue water roaring rhythmically astern, found herself poking about close hauled, with, on every hand as far as vision extended, icebergs, varying in size and shape, from a respectable many-peaked island to a spireless dissenting chapel.
We were very far indeed to the southward.
And now there came both mist and snow,And it grew wondrous cold;And ice, mast high, came floating by,As green as emerald.
And now there came both mist and snow,And it grew wondrous cold;And ice, mast high, came floating by,As green as emerald.
And now there came both mist and snow,And it grew wondrous cold;And ice, mast high, came floating by,As green as emerald.
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold;
And ice, mast high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
Still our commander’s faith in his strong wind-streak was unshaken; albeit, for a week or more, light baffling airs, scarce sufficing to fill the stiffened canvas, had been our portion. It was, too, indeed, ‘wondrous cold,’ and the[166]necessity for keeping a close and unwearied look-out became every hour more apparent. Already we had had narrow escapes of coming into collision with bergs wandering aimlessly about, which, although wonderfully beautiful objects in the daytime, and at a distance, with the bright sunlight reflecting a thousand prismatic hues from their glistening surfaces, yet of a dark night were liable, with a touch almost, to send us in a twinkling to Davy Jones.
The crew growled and shivered, and shivered and growled, making the while sarcastic inquiries as to the near vicinity of the South Pole, wishing in undertones that their skipper had been perched on the top of it before leading them into such cold quarters. As for myself, although rated as third mate, I was little more than a lad at the time, and thought the whole thing simply magnificent, hoping that we might penetrate still further into the unknown ‘regions of thick-ribbed ice’ ahead of us, whilst visions of a Southern Continent, bears, seals and walruses, floated through my imagination. To be sure I was well clothed and comfortably housed, which, perhaps, made all the difference. We are very apt to look at things one-sidedly, and with regard only to the character of our own particular surroundings. Man born of a woman is a more or less selfish animal. Every day the ‘wandering pearls of the sea,’ as someone has called them, seemed to become more plentiful, whilst, to add to our dilemma, a thick Antarctic fog, through which theBoadicea, with look-outs alow and aloft, crept like some great blind monster feeling its[167]way across the ocean, arose and hid everything from view.
The only one on board with any experience of such latitudes was our chief officer, a rough New Englander, who had taken a couple of voyages to the Northern fisheries in a Nantucket whaler. Far, however, from giving himself airs on that account, he was probably the most anxious man in the ship’s company. He had not a particle of faith in the great theory; moreover, he had seen a vessel ‘ripped’ in Davis Sound, which none of his companions had.
One evening, as if drawn up by some mighty hand, the fog lifted, disclosing the sun, cold, red, and angry-looking, glaring at us out of a sombre sky, and flushing the water and the bergs round about with a flood of purple light, on which our masts and rigging cast tremulous, long, black shadows, crossing and recrossing in a quivering maze, with big, shapeless blotches here and there for the sails. Suddenly a deeper, darker shadow fell athwart us; and there, not two oars’ lengths away, between ship and sun, rose an island.
Men rubbed their eyes, and rubbed and looked again, but there it was, every stern outline standing in bold relief, a rough, ragged mass of barren, desolate rock, its summit covered with snow—still, indisputably land. Even as we gazed eagerly, wonderingly, themiragefaded away in a moment, as it had appeared, and the mist descended like a grey, heavy curtain, enveloping all things in its damp folds.
[168]Presently it came on to snow. The standing rigging and running gear alike were coated with ice, whilst the canvas took the consistency of sheet-iron, and rang like glass when touched.
Roaring fires were lit in oil drums, fore and aft, in forecastle and cuddy. Soon the smoke in both places was as thick as the fog on deck; a kind of damp, unwholesome warmth was engendered as the impromptu stoves grew red-hot; great half-frozen cockroaches, thinking that the tropics were at hand, crawled out of nooks and crannies; and it seemed at times a toss up whether our end should come by ice or fire.
Most of our crew were Danes or Swedes, hardy and obedient men. If they had been British they would probably have attempted to compel the captain to alter his course. As it was, they simply put on all their available clothing and growled quietly. No matter what their nationality, all seamen growl; only some growl and work also.
Now, all the watches and clocks on board stopped, and, refusing to start again, they were placed in the cook’s oven with a view to warming the works. But, in the excitement consequent upon fending off a huge berg, which threatened to crush us, they were done brown, and completely ruined. About this time the captain, thinking, perhaps, that his experiment had gone far enough, gave the order to square the yards. On going to the braces we found that the sheaves of the blocks were frozen to their pins and would not travel. Taking them to the winch, with much heaving, the yards at last swung,[169]creaking and groaning, round, whilst showers of icy fragments fell rattling on deck.
It was almost a calm, the ship having barely steerage way upon her; but the barometer was falling, and it was judged prudent to shorten sail by putting theBoadiceaunder a couple of lower top-sails and fore and mizzen stay-sails.
To stow each of the upper top-sails it took twenty-four men and two boys—nearly, in fact, the ship’s company; and, if the courses had not already been furled, I do not think we could ever have managed them. The foot-ropes were like glass, the reef-points as rigid as bar iron, and one’s hands, after a minute aloft, had no more feeling in them than the icy canvas they tried to grasp. Through the fog, as we slowly descended the slippery ratlines, we imagined we could see great bergs looming indistinctly; and in our strained ears echoed the ever-impending crash as the wind gradually freshened.
It was a trying experience, even for the best prepared amongst us, this comparatively sudden transit from the tropics to twenty degrees below freezing point; and I firmly believe that, but for the unlimited supply of hot cocoa available day and night, at all hours, some of us would have given in. Spirits could be had for the asking, but no one seemed to care about them, even those known to be inveterate topers declining rum with something akin to disgust; perhaps the reason was that it became quite thick, and, when taken into the mouth, burned and excoriated both tongue and palate.
The night of the day on which we had snugged the[170]Boadiceadown was dark as pitch, and you could feel the fog as it hung low and clingingly to everything. Some time in the middle watch the breeze died away, giving place to light, unsteady airs—catspaws almost—and occasional falls of snow.
Imagine, if you can, the big ship creeping timorously and uncertainly through the thick Polar darkness and mist, a shapeless mass of yet thicker darkness, emitting here and there ruddy flashes of light, reflected momentarily back from snow-covered deck or coil of frozen rope. No sound breaks the silence except a gentle lap-lapping of water under her fore-foot as the canvas just fills enough to draw. Now snow falls, not deliberately, but with a soft, fleecy, rushing motion, which speedily fills up any inequalities about the decks, and would fill them from rail to rail if it lasted long. Presently a dozen bulky spectres move noiselessly around the galley door, which, being withdrawn, a warm glow streams out upon the watch come for hot cocoa.
Imagine, too, just as the tired men are about to drag their half-frozen limbs below, a sudden deeper silence, and a strange feeling of warmth and calm pervading the ship; the sails giving one mighty creaking flap up there in the gloom; the crash and rattle of ice falling from their frozen folds, and a cluster of awe-struck, up-turned faces, shining pallidly in the glow of the galley fire, as theBoadicea, but for a slight roll, lies idle and at rest.
Everyone knows and feels that something unusual has taken place, but no man there can say what it is. A[171]muttered order is heard, and in a minute a flood of vivid blue fire pours out into the darkness from the ship’s quarter, and a great subdued ‘Ah!’ runs fore and aft her, as, by its glare, we see tall, jagged cliffs, weird and ghastly in the strange light, towering far on high above our mast-heads, which appear to touch them.
‘Get the deep-sea lead overboard!’ shouts the captain.
‘Watch, there, watch!’ needlessly cry the men, as the line slips from their hands; and no bottom at one hundred fathoms.
‘’Taint land at all,’ says the mate quietly. ‘I kin smell ice; an’ ef we don’t mind we may calculate to winter ’mongst it ’stead o’ makin’ tracks for the Antipodes. Lower the quarter-boat,’ he goes on, ‘an’ tie the ship up for the night, as, ef I ain’t mistook, we’re pooty nigh surrounded.’
More bluelights are burned, and by their help and those of lanterns, theBoadicea, in a somewhat unnatural plight, is warped alongside a kind of ice jetty which stretches out from the main mass, and which, as if to save us the trouble of carrying out anchors, also to complete the resemblance to a pier, is furnished here and there with great knobs, to which we make fast our lines.
If you will try and picture to yourself the scene I have described, you will, I think, be willing to admit that ship seldom entered stranger harbour in a stranger manner, or that the ‘sweet little cherub, sitting up aloft,’ who is supposed to keep a special look-out for[172]‘poor Jack,’ and who on the present occasion—all the more honour to him—must have felt colder even than the proverbial upper hank of a Greenlandman’s gib, seldom performed his duty better.
Perhaps the all-pervading stillness was the thing that struck us most. The fenders, even, between the ship’s side and her novel pier scarcely gave a creak. And yet we were conscious that, somewhere, not very far away, it was beginning to blow freshly, although the sound fell on our ears but as a subdued, faint murmur, serving only to intensify the surrounding silence and hush.
‘There’s a fire up there!’ exclaimed one of the men, presently. And, sure enough, a tiny, sickly flame appeared far away above us. It grew gradually larger and larger, till at length a long, broad streak of silver shot down the ice-mountains and fell athwart our decks, as a three-quarters-full moon, pale, washed-out and sickly-looking, shone for a minute through the low, black clouds hurrying swiftly across her face.
A dull, grey dawn, at last, giving us just enough light to see what had happened. Ice everywhere!
The ice was here, the ice was there,The ice was all around;
The ice was here, the ice was there,The ice was all around;
The ice was here, the ice was there,The ice was all around;
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
and on every side rose huge bergs from one hundred feet to two hundred feet in height, and enclosing a space of barely a mile in circumference; an ice-bound lake, in fact; and, what struck a chill of terror to our hearts as we gazed, a lake without any exit. Look as we might, there[173]was not the least sign of an opening. Unwittingly we had sailed or drifted into a girdle of conjoined bergs. During the night the passage through which we entered had closed, and a cruel and stupendous barrier, hard as granite, slippery as glass, lay betwixt us and the outer ocean.
Within, the water was as smooth as a mill-pond, the air was quite warm, and after breakfast all hands went ‘ashore’ to stretch their legs, look wonderingly up at our prison walls, and speculate on the chances of getting out.
As I gazed around me at the strange scene—the snow-clad, towering peaks, glittering coldly in the yet feeble sun rays, the deep, shadow-laden valleys at their bases, and the perpendicular curtains of naked, steely-blue ice connecting one berg with the other—there came to my mind some long-forgotten lines of Montgomery’s, in which he depicts the awful fate of an ice-boundvessel:—
There lies a vessel in that realm of frost,Not wrecked, not stranded, but for ever lost;Its keel embedded in the solid mass;Its glistening sails appear expanded glass;The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung.. . . . . . .Morn shall return, and noon, and eve, and nightMeet here with interchanging shade and light;But from that barque no timber shall decay;Of these cold forms no feature pass away.
There lies a vessel in that realm of frost,Not wrecked, not stranded, but for ever lost;Its keel embedded in the solid mass;Its glistening sails appear expanded glass;The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung.. . . . . . .Morn shall return, and noon, and eve, and nightMeet here with interchanging shade and light;But from that barque no timber shall decay;Of these cold forms no feature pass away.
There lies a vessel in that realm of frost,Not wrecked, not stranded, but for ever lost;Its keel embedded in the solid mass;Its glistening sails appear expanded glass;The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung.. . . . . . .Morn shall return, and noon, and eve, and nightMeet here with interchanging shade and light;But from that barque no timber shall decay;Of these cold forms no feature pass away.
There lies a vessel in that realm of frost,
Not wrecked, not stranded, but for ever lost;
Its keel embedded in the solid mass;
Its glistening sails appear expanded glass;
The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung.
. . . . . . .
Morn shall return, and noon, and eve, and night
Meet here with interchanging shade and light;
But from that barque no timber shall decay;
Of these cold forms no feature pass away.
I had rather enjoyed the first days of our Antarctic experiences, but the pleasure began decidedly to pall with such a horrible contingency in view, and I was now[174]fully as anxious as anyone for clear water and a straight course.
After a while, the gig was manned, and, with the captain and chief mate, we pulled round our harbour to a spot where, from the ship, a part of the ice-curtain seemed low and pretty accessible. So it had appeared; but when we reached it we found fifty feet of perpendicular slippery wall between our boat’s gunwale and the summit of the ridge we had hoped to mount.
‘We’re in a pooty nice kind o’ a fix,’ said our mate, as we returned. ‘An’,’ glancing at the lowering sky, ‘I reckon it’s going to blow some, presently. Mebbe it’ll blow us out o’ these chunks of ice.’
The captain made no reply, but he was evidently not in a very cheerful state of mind.
That evening it did begin to blow very hard. Not that we felt it much, but we could hear the storm howling and roaring outside, and the thunderous breakers which dashed themselves against our sheltering bergs, causing them to tremble and pitch now and again as the mighty seas struck their bases. We had shifted theBoadiceaout to the extreme end of the jetty, double-banked our fenders, and taken every other precaution we could think of, in addition to standing-by through the night to cast off and sheet home at a minute’s notice.
There was no more silence now; for, although we were all drifting away together about E. half S. before the wind, the bergs forming our enclosure ground against each other with an incessant rending, tearing[175]sound, which now, although seeming to foretell an early dissolution of partnership, filled us with terror lest some of them should topple over on the ship.
The ship herself, no longer steady, was hove violently up and down with every motion of the bergs; whilst the great wooden fenders, cut from spare spars, were torn to splinters, and the hawsers surged round their icy mooring posts with a curious, screaming, intermittent noise, making us think that every moment they were about to part.
Four bells in the morning watch had just struck when we heard a terrific crash rising high above the surrounding din, and the next instant a great wave came rushing over theBoadicea, filling her decks, nearly lifting her on to the ice, and then slamming her down with such force as to snap the hawsers like threads and smash the bulwarks to matchwood the whole length of the port side. Drifting away from our friendly jetty, we at once felt that our prison was broken up; for, now, the gale from which we had been so long sheltered howled and tore through the rigging, whilst cataracts of bitter cold water rushed in quick succession over the decks, and lumps of ice bumped up against theBoadicea’sbows and sides.
‘Set the lower fore-top-sail and mizzen-stay-sail!’
And now the slatting and banging of canvas, the rattle of iron sheets and hanks, the hoarse cries of the men as they staggered about the wet, slippery planking, together with the rending and smashing of[176]ice all around, made up a scene that defies description; whilst to lend it an additional weirdness, a ‘flare-up’ of oakum and tar, which had been run up to a lower-stuns’l boom-end, blazed wildly overhead like a great fierce eye looking down upon us out of the thick darkness. So closely were we beset, however, that, spite of the canvas, we soon found that we were simply drifting aimlessly about amidst immense fragments of capsized bergs, which threatened every moment to crush us. Indeed, we did get one squeeze that made the ship crack again, and whose after effect was seen by the fact that the cabin doors for the rest of the passage refused to close by a good six inches. Presently, grinding and scraping up alongside a small berg—or portion of a larger one, we cannot tell which—we make fast to it as well as we are able, and direct all our efforts to fending off its companions. As daylight approaches, we notice that the ice becomes rarer, and sails by at longer intervals; and as it breaks more fully out of a lowering yellowish sky a wild sight meets our eyes.
The sea is dotted with bergs—small ones nodding and bobbing along, big ones gliding majestically before the wind, till, a pair of these latter colliding, down crumble spires and minarets, towers and pinnacles, suddenly as a child’s card-built house, sending up tall columns of water as they fall.
It is not this spectacle, however, that brings forth a simultaneous shout from everyone on board, but[177]the appearance, as one berg gives a half-turn, of an object, hardly two hundred yards from our jibboom end, standing there, amidst all the wild commotion, steadfast, rugged and grim, with tall breakers curling up against its ice-surrounded, dark red cliffs, and falling back in showers of foam, showing milky-white in the morning gloom.
It is land, surely! And, surely, we have seen those forbidding, snow-capped precipices before. It is the island of themirage, substantial enough this time, and in another ten minutes we shall be dashed to atoms against its surf-encircled base.
The sight had a wondrous effect, and men who seemed incapable a minute before of stirring their stiffened limbs now hopped up the rigging like goats, and scampered along the deck with the top-sail halliards as if racing for a wager, in obedience to the order to cast off and make sail.
‘Hard a port!’ and theBoadicea’spoop is splashed with spray from rocks and ice as she turns slowly from a jagged, honeycombed promontory, whilst her late consort goes headlong to destruction on its iron teeth.
It is still blowing hard; but our captain is more than satisfied; and, under everything she can carry, theBoadicearushes, like a frightened stag, fast away, northwards and eastwards, out of those dismal seas of ice and fog, snow, and unknown islands, a very nightmare of navigation, into which one merchant skipper, at least, will never willingly venture again.
[178]However, we, after all, perhaps, set our course on a higher parallel than anyone had done since Ross in ’41, followed the outline of a southern continent, whose volcanoes flamed to heaven from a lifeless, desolate land of ice and snow. And, as some compensation for our trouble and dangers, till we sighted the south end of Tasmania, we never had occasion to touch a rope, so steadily and strongly blew the fair wind.
‘Seventy-five days—a rattlin’ good passage!’ exclaimed our Port Jackson pilot; and when he asked what had become of our bulwarks, and why the cuddy doors wouldn’t shut, we simply told him we had been ‘Too far south.’
[179]THE MISSION TO DINGO CREEK.An Apostolical Sketch.‘Badwork, this!’ exclaimed the Bishop ofB——to one of a recent consignment of curates. ‘Bad work this, in the North!That part of the diocese evidently wants looking to again. Nice trip for you, Greenwell. Give you some idea of the country, too,’ continued the Bishop. ‘Yes, decidedly; the very man! Let me see; steamer toR——, then overland. Of course, you may have to rough it a little; but that will only add a zest to the change.’The ‘bad work’ that his lordship alluded to was the substance of some reports that had just arrived from one of the new gold rushes, situated in the extreme north of his immense diocese, reports of a terrible state of immorality, drunkenness, and general godlessness existing there amongst far-off members of his flock—to wit, rough diggers and bushmen, together with a sprinkling of nondescripts, characterless vagrants, defaulters, horse-thieves, and worse, who had flocked there from the neighbouring colonies as to an Alsatia, where they[180]could remain, at least, for the time being, secure from even the far-reaching arm of the law.On such material as this had the good Bishop, shortly after his arrival in his new see, from his snug English vicarage, essayed the power of his eloquence on his only visit to that part of his charge: a visit, be it whispered, he was not in the least anxious to repeat.The Reverend Spicer Greenwell fairly shuddered at the thought of trusting his precious person amongst such a set of savages as his imagination at once conjured up. But all his excuses and demurrings were without avail, his superior having, by some curious mischance, got it into his head that his senior curate was the very man qualified for such a mission to the heathen.Though getting well on towards middle age, Mr Greenwell was a failure. He had completely mistaken his vocation; but he did not think so, and nobody had, as yet, been rude enough to tell him so.Mrs Jellyby’s mission was, if we remember aright, to cultivate coffee and the natives of Borioboola-Gha. Mr Greenwell’s was to cultivate teas—afternoon ones—and at the same time to, if possible, capture a fair ‘Native,’ rich in those goods of this world, in which he himself was so unhappily deficient.For the rest, he was a gaunt, waxen-visaged man, who always wore the highest waistcoats, longest coats, and whitest neckties obtainable; was never seen without a large diamond ring on his little finger; and seldom deigned to consort or even converse with the other clergymen of the district, unless brought into direct[181]communication with them by his position—into which he had partly thrust himself, partly had conferred upon him through home influence—of the Bishop’schargé d’affaires. He had, he flattered himself, before this untoward affair happened, been making rapid progress with the damsels of the Banana city; and, indeed, amongst some of the more elderly spinsters of the congregation of St Jude’s, he was voted as ‘quite too nice.’Imagine then, if you can, the horror and disgust of such a man at being chosen for such an errand. But the Bishop was adamant; and I have many a time thought since that he purposely hardened his heart, and that, whilst dilating on his curate’s especial fitness for the work, his energy and push—as already illustrated in parish matters—his suave and polished manners, alone a vast handicap in his favour amongst the rude and illiterate people he was about to visit, the good prelate privately hoped within himself that if the shepherd he was sending forth did little benefit to the flock, yet, that the latter might possibly succeed in some unforeseen way in toning down the self-sufficiency, egoism and vanity of the pastor.Seeing, at length, that there was no help for it, and that go he must, the luckless curate, taking a mournful and solemn farewell of his lady friends, went forth to preach the Gospel to the heathen of the Dingo Creek diggings.Things went well enough with our traveller till he reachedR——, the nearest township of any size to Dingo Creek, which last place lay still further ahead[182]nearly ninety miles through rough and lonely country. At intervals on his route he had held services and preached sermons—little marrowless exhortations that he had long known by heart, and that, if they did no harm, assuredly did little good. FromR——, whence he set out on horseback, a road led sixty miles to a bush public-house, where he was told he could be accommodated with a buggy, and, perhaps, a guide to his destination.Duly arriving, sore and jaded, at the sign of the ‘Jolly Bushman,’ he found the host an obliging sort of a fellow enough, who said he would himself have driven the gentleman to Dingo Creek, but that his wife was ill. However, his buggy should be at his disposal the next morning; and also the publican promised Cooronga Billy should go as guide, and, if necessary, bring both buggy and parson back again. Early on the following morning the buggy and a pair of good-looking ponies put in an appearance at the door of the ‘Jolly Bushman’; so did Cooronga Billy.But now we must for a while drop the thread of the story, and go back to the time when, as a baby, Billy lay sound asleep in his black mother’s arms under the shadow of the far-away Cooronga ranges—back to that fearful morning whose earliest dawn heralded the pitiless swoop of the native troopers on to the quiet camp. His tribe ‘dispersed,’ baby Billy, the sole survivor, was brought toB——, sent, in due course, to the best schools, and received a special education, with a view to fitting him for the ministry, and a sphere of what, it was fervently hoped by many good men, would[183]prove congenial and profitable labour amongst his own benighted countrymen.As he grew towards man’s estate, Billy became quite one of the lions ofB——, and was proudly exhibited and put through his paces before distinguished strangers, as a splendid specimen of ‘what can be done with our aborigines.’Suddenly, and just when all this gratulation was at its height, William Cooronga Morris—he was indebted to the white officer who had commanded the ‘dispersers’ of his tribe for the first and last of these names, duly received at the font of St Jude’s—disappeared totally, turning up months afterwards, clad in his native skins, armed with his native weapons, at one of the far-out townships; and had ever since loafed around the outskirts of Northern Settlement, a degrading example of what over-civilisation can do for a black-fellow.Periodical visits would Billy make far out in the Bush towards the wild Coorongas—for some strange instinct had led him at his first departure towards the land of his birth—and there, instead of, as had been so fondly expected, bending his energies towards the cure of souls amongst his dark brethren, it was freely reported that Mr W. C. Morris constituted himself their leader in many a fat-cattle spearing expedition, if nothing worse.Billy, at the moment we have chosen to introduce him to the reader, had just returned from one of those forays, and a terrible figure he appeared to the Reverend Spicer.[184]Nearly naked, with the exception of a short ’possum cloak, his skin plentifully covered with red and white ochre, and his hair decorated with cockatoo feathers; whilst across one side of his face ran a long, gaping scar, a relic of some recent corrobboree—what wonder that the reverend gentleman gazed more than doubtfullyat the person introduced to him by the publican as his guide. The landlord observed his hesitation and the cause of it.‘Never mind, sir,’ said he, ‘he’s as quiet as a sheep. Dessay his ’ed’s sore, though. Have a nobbler, Cooronga? It’ll make him lively like, you see,’ he concluded, addressing the curate, who evidently thought that Billy looked quite lively enough.At length they started, Billy driving, sulky and taciturn, answering questions as shortly as possible, and in the vilest of pigeon English.Nearly three parts of the journey was accomplished—for Billy drove like a very Jehu—when the curate began to feel hungry. So, as they came to a deep gully where the rain-water lay in pools amongst the rocks, he made his guide pull up, and prepared to comfort the inner man.Taking no notice of his companion, he sat down by the edge of the water, and began with immense gusto to demolish a roast fowl and other materials for a very fair repast.[184a][Illustration][Illustration:Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? (Page 186.)]AtR——the reverend gentleman had provided himself with two bottles of port, a wine which he had been told was a first-class specific in cases of bush-fever and[185]dysentery. The bottles were by this gone; but out of the last one he had filled a large travelling flask, which now producing, along with a tumbler, he proceeded—first qualifying his liquor with a modicum of water—to wash down his lunch.Billy’s eyes sparkled. He at once recognised the smell and colour, but would have preferred rum.However, little of anything, solid or fluid, seemed likely to fall to his share, for the weather was hot, and our curate thirsty.Presently, addressing Cooronga, the Reverend Spicer, who had no idea of entering the scene of his ministrations, with such a figure as Billy for his charioteer,said,—‘How many miles did you say it was from here to Dingo Creek?’‘Lebn,’ grunted Billy.‘Is the road as plain all the way as it is here?’‘Ess,’ again grunted the tantalised Cooronga.‘Very well, then,’ replied the curate, ‘you can walk on. I will follow with the buggy when it gets a little cooler.’But this was out of Billy’s programme altogether. Pointing to the capacious flask, to which the thirsty divine was paying repeated attention, he saidabruptly,—‘You gib it Cooronga. Him dry too!’‘That is medicine, my friend,’ was the reply, ‘and it would do you no good. If, as you seem to imply, you are thirsty, there lies water in abundance.’[186]Billy’s first impulse was to drive his spear through the curate. But, restraining himself with a sigh, another idea entered into his mischievous head. A large stump stood close by, overlooking the unsuspecting Spicer and thedébrisof his meal. Upon this stump, with a bound, Billy sprung, and, letting fall his cloak, disclosing to view his whole body, hideously chalked, skeleton-wise, he began, in a tone and with an enunciation far superior to that of the reverend gentleman himself, to declaim, with pointedspear,—‘Who hath woe?Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?‘They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.‘Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.‘At the last—’But here, poor Spicer, who had risen to his feet, and stood horror-stricken at hearing himself, as he imagined, reproved and threatened for his bibbing propensities through the mouth of a fiend, or even, as his staring eyes took in Billy’stout ensemble, it might be the Arch Enemy of mankind himself, uttered a shriek and fled, terror lending unwonted speed to his legs, down the gully; whilst Billy, with a wild whoop, descending from his perch, took the flask and what remained of the provisions to the buggy, and drove off into the Bush.[187]Late that night, a weary, footsore traveller entered the principal public-house in Dingo Creek, and began to ask incoherent questions about a buggy and a black-fellow, the latter, he averred, an emissary of Satan, who had led him into the wilderness, and there deserted him—a story that the rough host and his equally rough customers could make neither head nor tail of.‘It’s a rum go altogether,’ said the former to one of his digger friends, after poor Spicer had retired, nearly dead beat, to his rough-slabbed room, whence he could hear all that went on in the bar.‘The rummest thing I’ve heard on for some time,’ assented the other. ‘He looks somethin’ like as a parson should look, right enough. But either he’s just off of a rather heavy spree, or else he’s more’n a shingle short. Sez he seen Ole Nick back there in the Bush, an’ the old ’un shook his buggy.’’Bin on the bust, down at the “Jolly Bushman’s,” I ’spects,’ put in another. ‘You fellers knows as somedosee the old chap arter a ’ard bust. As for me, I takes it out in snakes mostly. But there’s my mate, Bill, he allus has cats. I seen him one time a-huntin’ ’em round the tent all night long, arter bein’ on the spree for a week.’Confidence in the Reverend Spicer was, however, a little restored, when, next morning, the buggy was found intact in the public-house yard; and his confused appearance and rambling statements of the previous night were[188]charitably ascribed by the majority to ‘a touch of the sun.’During the day it was announced throughout the place that the Reverend gentleman would address the inhabitants in the ‘dance-room’ of the public-house, as being the only one available for such a purpose. Figure to yourself a long, low room, on the earthen floor of which tree stumps still stood. At the far end, behind a sort of bar formed by sheets of galvanised iron, supported on trestles, waits, manuscript in hand, still in a rather unsettled state of mind, the Reverend Spicer. The place is dimly lit by flaring candles and slush lamps, and is crowded by an assembly of as mixed nationalities, customs and creeds, as could be found out of, say, Alexandria or Singapore. A strong smell of stale spirits and tobacco smoke pervades everything. All the men, as our curate sees, are armed with a sheath-knife and revolver; and, as he looks, he trembles and handles the address as gingerly as if it were a parcel of dynamite, and liable to explode at any moment, for it is not one of his own pithless compositions, but the work of the Bishop himself, a powerful and emphatic remonstrance—penned in his quiet study at Bishopstowe—against the sinful and dissolute lives of the Dingo Creekers. But, had the frightened curate only known it, the mob, mixed and uncontrolled as it was, would have as soon thought of ill-treating a grasshopper as himself. And, all roughened and uncivilised as were the best of them, there were still men amongst them in whom the mere sight of a clergyman awoke memories long forgotten and buried[189]under the combats and toils of life—men who had once ‘looked on better days,’ and whom Sabbath-bells had once ‘knoll’d to church,’ and this portion it was who, after awhile, obtained silence, and set the example of doffing their hats and putting away their pipes.Very picturesque was the scene, with the lights flickering—now on the bronzed features of some stalwart European, now on the dark face of a negro, or the yellow expressionless countenance of a Chinaman—as the motley audience stood or squatted silent and attentive, whilst our curate quavered and stammered through the opening sentences of the address. And favourable, beyond all hope, would have seemed the opportunity to a true soldier of the Cross for softening the hearts of the poor heathen of Dingo Creek.But never, perhaps, since the days when William C. Morris, arrayed in black broadcloth, was qualifying as an evangelist, has anyone felt himself more of a square peg in a round hole than did poor Spicer Greenwell, as he droned away, presently, amidst exclamations of disgust and disapproval from his curious congregation.‘Give it lip, man!’ shouted a gigantic digger, whose beard reached almost to his waist. ‘Give it lip, an’ let’s hear what it’s all about.’ Then, turning to the publican: ‘Give him a nobbler, Jimmy; it’ll keep his pecker up. He’s mighty scared o’ somethin’.’ Declining the offered half-tumblerful of rum with a gesture of disgust, the curate, intent only on getting to the end of his task, resumed his reading.[190]At this moment Cooronga Billy, who had passed the day in the adjacent black’s camp, entered, and was at once warmly greeted by the crowd, to all of whom he was well known, and to whom he proceeded, amidst shouts of laughter, to relate the story of his escapade at the gully.The curate, disturbed by the noise, lifted up his head, and, seeing Billy now standing just in front of him, he dropped his papers, and pointing to the grinning black fellow,shouted,—‘Men! men! Satan himself is amongst you!’The truth of the affair, helped out by Billy’s story, now broke on all hands, and roars of unrestrained laughter, accompanied by wild impromptu dancing and cheers for ‘Cooronga,’ put an end, for the time at least, to any hopes that the Reverend Spicer might have once entertained as to his being instrumental to even a slight degree in the regeneration of Dingo Creek, the dust of which, a sadder and a wiser man, he shook without the least delay from off his feet.Cooronga Billy has long since rejoined his tribe in the happy hunting grounds; but stories, many and wonderful, of the effect produced by the exercise of his perverted abilities are still told by the pioneers of the region in which he flourished.The Reverend Spicer Greenwell still exists; but, should the reader feel inclined to seek him, his quest must lie well within the precincts of the highest civilisation to be found in our colonies, and he must be careful that no reference, be it ever so remote, to the[191]adventure herein described, pass his lips; for, though his life has ‘fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf,’ still is the reverend gentleman strangely susceptible to any allusion to that episode of his earlier Australian experience.
An Apostolical Sketch.
‘Badwork, this!’ exclaimed the Bishop ofB——to one of a recent consignment of curates. ‘Bad work this, in the North!That part of the diocese evidently wants looking to again. Nice trip for you, Greenwell. Give you some idea of the country, too,’ continued the Bishop. ‘Yes, decidedly; the very man! Let me see; steamer toR——, then overland. Of course, you may have to rough it a little; but that will only add a zest to the change.’
The ‘bad work’ that his lordship alluded to was the substance of some reports that had just arrived from one of the new gold rushes, situated in the extreme north of his immense diocese, reports of a terrible state of immorality, drunkenness, and general godlessness existing there amongst far-off members of his flock—to wit, rough diggers and bushmen, together with a sprinkling of nondescripts, characterless vagrants, defaulters, horse-thieves, and worse, who had flocked there from the neighbouring colonies as to an Alsatia, where they[180]could remain, at least, for the time being, secure from even the far-reaching arm of the law.
On such material as this had the good Bishop, shortly after his arrival in his new see, from his snug English vicarage, essayed the power of his eloquence on his only visit to that part of his charge: a visit, be it whispered, he was not in the least anxious to repeat.
The Reverend Spicer Greenwell fairly shuddered at the thought of trusting his precious person amongst such a set of savages as his imagination at once conjured up. But all his excuses and demurrings were without avail, his superior having, by some curious mischance, got it into his head that his senior curate was the very man qualified for such a mission to the heathen.
Though getting well on towards middle age, Mr Greenwell was a failure. He had completely mistaken his vocation; but he did not think so, and nobody had, as yet, been rude enough to tell him so.
Mrs Jellyby’s mission was, if we remember aright, to cultivate coffee and the natives of Borioboola-Gha. Mr Greenwell’s was to cultivate teas—afternoon ones—and at the same time to, if possible, capture a fair ‘Native,’ rich in those goods of this world, in which he himself was so unhappily deficient.
For the rest, he was a gaunt, waxen-visaged man, who always wore the highest waistcoats, longest coats, and whitest neckties obtainable; was never seen without a large diamond ring on his little finger; and seldom deigned to consort or even converse with the other clergymen of the district, unless brought into direct[181]communication with them by his position—into which he had partly thrust himself, partly had conferred upon him through home influence—of the Bishop’schargé d’affaires. He had, he flattered himself, before this untoward affair happened, been making rapid progress with the damsels of the Banana city; and, indeed, amongst some of the more elderly spinsters of the congregation of St Jude’s, he was voted as ‘quite too nice.’
Imagine then, if you can, the horror and disgust of such a man at being chosen for such an errand. But the Bishop was adamant; and I have many a time thought since that he purposely hardened his heart, and that, whilst dilating on his curate’s especial fitness for the work, his energy and push—as already illustrated in parish matters—his suave and polished manners, alone a vast handicap in his favour amongst the rude and illiterate people he was about to visit, the good prelate privately hoped within himself that if the shepherd he was sending forth did little benefit to the flock, yet, that the latter might possibly succeed in some unforeseen way in toning down the self-sufficiency, egoism and vanity of the pastor.
Seeing, at length, that there was no help for it, and that go he must, the luckless curate, taking a mournful and solemn farewell of his lady friends, went forth to preach the Gospel to the heathen of the Dingo Creek diggings.
Things went well enough with our traveller till he reachedR——, the nearest township of any size to Dingo Creek, which last place lay still further ahead[182]nearly ninety miles through rough and lonely country. At intervals on his route he had held services and preached sermons—little marrowless exhortations that he had long known by heart, and that, if they did no harm, assuredly did little good. FromR——, whence he set out on horseback, a road led sixty miles to a bush public-house, where he was told he could be accommodated with a buggy, and, perhaps, a guide to his destination.
Duly arriving, sore and jaded, at the sign of the ‘Jolly Bushman,’ he found the host an obliging sort of a fellow enough, who said he would himself have driven the gentleman to Dingo Creek, but that his wife was ill. However, his buggy should be at his disposal the next morning; and also the publican promised Cooronga Billy should go as guide, and, if necessary, bring both buggy and parson back again. Early on the following morning the buggy and a pair of good-looking ponies put in an appearance at the door of the ‘Jolly Bushman’; so did Cooronga Billy.
But now we must for a while drop the thread of the story, and go back to the time when, as a baby, Billy lay sound asleep in his black mother’s arms under the shadow of the far-away Cooronga ranges—back to that fearful morning whose earliest dawn heralded the pitiless swoop of the native troopers on to the quiet camp. His tribe ‘dispersed,’ baby Billy, the sole survivor, was brought toB——, sent, in due course, to the best schools, and received a special education, with a view to fitting him for the ministry, and a sphere of what, it was fervently hoped by many good men, would[183]prove congenial and profitable labour amongst his own benighted countrymen.
As he grew towards man’s estate, Billy became quite one of the lions ofB——, and was proudly exhibited and put through his paces before distinguished strangers, as a splendid specimen of ‘what can be done with our aborigines.’
Suddenly, and just when all this gratulation was at its height, William Cooronga Morris—he was indebted to the white officer who had commanded the ‘dispersers’ of his tribe for the first and last of these names, duly received at the font of St Jude’s—disappeared totally, turning up months afterwards, clad in his native skins, armed with his native weapons, at one of the far-out townships; and had ever since loafed around the outskirts of Northern Settlement, a degrading example of what over-civilisation can do for a black-fellow.
Periodical visits would Billy make far out in the Bush towards the wild Coorongas—for some strange instinct had led him at his first departure towards the land of his birth—and there, instead of, as had been so fondly expected, bending his energies towards the cure of souls amongst his dark brethren, it was freely reported that Mr W. C. Morris constituted himself their leader in many a fat-cattle spearing expedition, if nothing worse.
Billy, at the moment we have chosen to introduce him to the reader, had just returned from one of those forays, and a terrible figure he appeared to the Reverend Spicer.
[184]Nearly naked, with the exception of a short ’possum cloak, his skin plentifully covered with red and white ochre, and his hair decorated with cockatoo feathers; whilst across one side of his face ran a long, gaping scar, a relic of some recent corrobboree—what wonder that the reverend gentleman gazed more than doubtfullyat the person introduced to him by the publican as his guide. The landlord observed his hesitation and the cause of it.
‘Never mind, sir,’ said he, ‘he’s as quiet as a sheep. Dessay his ’ed’s sore, though. Have a nobbler, Cooronga? It’ll make him lively like, you see,’ he concluded, addressing the curate, who evidently thought that Billy looked quite lively enough.
At length they started, Billy driving, sulky and taciturn, answering questions as shortly as possible, and in the vilest of pigeon English.
Nearly three parts of the journey was accomplished—for Billy drove like a very Jehu—when the curate began to feel hungry. So, as they came to a deep gully where the rain-water lay in pools amongst the rocks, he made his guide pull up, and prepared to comfort the inner man.
Taking no notice of his companion, he sat down by the edge of the water, and began with immense gusto to demolish a roast fowl and other materials for a very fair repast.
[184a][Illustration][Illustration:Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? (Page 186.)]
[Illustration:Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? (Page 186.)]
AtR——the reverend gentleman had provided himself with two bottles of port, a wine which he had been told was a first-class specific in cases of bush-fever and[185]dysentery. The bottles were by this gone; but out of the last one he had filled a large travelling flask, which now producing, along with a tumbler, he proceeded—first qualifying his liquor with a modicum of water—to wash down his lunch.
Billy’s eyes sparkled. He at once recognised the smell and colour, but would have preferred rum.
However, little of anything, solid or fluid, seemed likely to fall to his share, for the weather was hot, and our curate thirsty.
Presently, addressing Cooronga, the Reverend Spicer, who had no idea of entering the scene of his ministrations, with such a figure as Billy for his charioteer,said,—
‘How many miles did you say it was from here to Dingo Creek?’
‘Lebn,’ grunted Billy.
‘Is the road as plain all the way as it is here?’
‘Ess,’ again grunted the tantalised Cooronga.
‘Very well, then,’ replied the curate, ‘you can walk on. I will follow with the buggy when it gets a little cooler.’
But this was out of Billy’s programme altogether. Pointing to the capacious flask, to which the thirsty divine was paying repeated attention, he saidabruptly,—
‘You gib it Cooronga. Him dry too!’
‘That is medicine, my friend,’ was the reply, ‘and it would do you no good. If, as you seem to imply, you are thirsty, there lies water in abundance.’
[186]Billy’s first impulse was to drive his spear through the curate. But, restraining himself with a sigh, another idea entered into his mischievous head. A large stump stood close by, overlooking the unsuspecting Spicer and thedébrisof his meal. Upon this stump, with a bound, Billy sprung, and, letting fall his cloak, disclosing to view his whole body, hideously chalked, skeleton-wise, he began, in a tone and with an enunciation far superior to that of the reverend gentleman himself, to declaim, with pointedspear,—
‘Who hath woe?Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?
‘They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
‘Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
‘At the last—’
But here, poor Spicer, who had risen to his feet, and stood horror-stricken at hearing himself, as he imagined, reproved and threatened for his bibbing propensities through the mouth of a fiend, or even, as his staring eyes took in Billy’stout ensemble, it might be the Arch Enemy of mankind himself, uttered a shriek and fled, terror lending unwonted speed to his legs, down the gully; whilst Billy, with a wild whoop, descending from his perch, took the flask and what remained of the provisions to the buggy, and drove off into the Bush.
[187]Late that night, a weary, footsore traveller entered the principal public-house in Dingo Creek, and began to ask incoherent questions about a buggy and a black-fellow, the latter, he averred, an emissary of Satan, who had led him into the wilderness, and there deserted him—a story that the rough host and his equally rough customers could make neither head nor tail of.
‘It’s a rum go altogether,’ said the former to one of his digger friends, after poor Spicer had retired, nearly dead beat, to his rough-slabbed room, whence he could hear all that went on in the bar.
‘The rummest thing I’ve heard on for some time,’ assented the other. ‘He looks somethin’ like as a parson should look, right enough. But either he’s just off of a rather heavy spree, or else he’s more’n a shingle short. Sez he seen Ole Nick back there in the Bush, an’ the old ’un shook his buggy.’
’Bin on the bust, down at the “Jolly Bushman’s,” I ’spects,’ put in another. ‘You fellers knows as somedosee the old chap arter a ’ard bust. As for me, I takes it out in snakes mostly. But there’s my mate, Bill, he allus has cats. I seen him one time a-huntin’ ’em round the tent all night long, arter bein’ on the spree for a week.’
Confidence in the Reverend Spicer was, however, a little restored, when, next morning, the buggy was found intact in the public-house yard; and his confused appearance and rambling statements of the previous night were[188]charitably ascribed by the majority to ‘a touch of the sun.’
During the day it was announced throughout the place that the Reverend gentleman would address the inhabitants in the ‘dance-room’ of the public-house, as being the only one available for such a purpose. Figure to yourself a long, low room, on the earthen floor of which tree stumps still stood. At the far end, behind a sort of bar formed by sheets of galvanised iron, supported on trestles, waits, manuscript in hand, still in a rather unsettled state of mind, the Reverend Spicer. The place is dimly lit by flaring candles and slush lamps, and is crowded by an assembly of as mixed nationalities, customs and creeds, as could be found out of, say, Alexandria or Singapore. A strong smell of stale spirits and tobacco smoke pervades everything. All the men, as our curate sees, are armed with a sheath-knife and revolver; and, as he looks, he trembles and handles the address as gingerly as if it were a parcel of dynamite, and liable to explode at any moment, for it is not one of his own pithless compositions, but the work of the Bishop himself, a powerful and emphatic remonstrance—penned in his quiet study at Bishopstowe—against the sinful and dissolute lives of the Dingo Creekers. But, had the frightened curate only known it, the mob, mixed and uncontrolled as it was, would have as soon thought of ill-treating a grasshopper as himself. And, all roughened and uncivilised as were the best of them, there were still men amongst them in whom the mere sight of a clergyman awoke memories long forgotten and buried[189]under the combats and toils of life—men who had once ‘looked on better days,’ and whom Sabbath-bells had once ‘knoll’d to church,’ and this portion it was who, after awhile, obtained silence, and set the example of doffing their hats and putting away their pipes.
Very picturesque was the scene, with the lights flickering—now on the bronzed features of some stalwart European, now on the dark face of a negro, or the yellow expressionless countenance of a Chinaman—as the motley audience stood or squatted silent and attentive, whilst our curate quavered and stammered through the opening sentences of the address. And favourable, beyond all hope, would have seemed the opportunity to a true soldier of the Cross for softening the hearts of the poor heathen of Dingo Creek.
But never, perhaps, since the days when William C. Morris, arrayed in black broadcloth, was qualifying as an evangelist, has anyone felt himself more of a square peg in a round hole than did poor Spicer Greenwell, as he droned away, presently, amidst exclamations of disgust and disapproval from his curious congregation.
‘Give it lip, man!’ shouted a gigantic digger, whose beard reached almost to his waist. ‘Give it lip, an’ let’s hear what it’s all about.’ Then, turning to the publican: ‘Give him a nobbler, Jimmy; it’ll keep his pecker up. He’s mighty scared o’ somethin’.’ Declining the offered half-tumblerful of rum with a gesture of disgust, the curate, intent only on getting to the end of his task, resumed his reading.
[190]At this moment Cooronga Billy, who had passed the day in the adjacent black’s camp, entered, and was at once warmly greeted by the crowd, to all of whom he was well known, and to whom he proceeded, amidst shouts of laughter, to relate the story of his escapade at the gully.
The curate, disturbed by the noise, lifted up his head, and, seeing Billy now standing just in front of him, he dropped his papers, and pointing to the grinning black fellow,shouted,—
‘Men! men! Satan himself is amongst you!’
The truth of the affair, helped out by Billy’s story, now broke on all hands, and roars of unrestrained laughter, accompanied by wild impromptu dancing and cheers for ‘Cooronga,’ put an end, for the time at least, to any hopes that the Reverend Spicer might have once entertained as to his being instrumental to even a slight degree in the regeneration of Dingo Creek, the dust of which, a sadder and a wiser man, he shook without the least delay from off his feet.
Cooronga Billy has long since rejoined his tribe in the happy hunting grounds; but stories, many and wonderful, of the effect produced by the exercise of his perverted abilities are still told by the pioneers of the region in which he flourished.
The Reverend Spicer Greenwell still exists; but, should the reader feel inclined to seek him, his quest must lie well within the precincts of the highest civilisation to be found in our colonies, and he must be careful that no reference, be it ever so remote, to the[191]adventure herein described, pass his lips; for, though his life has ‘fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf,’ still is the reverend gentleman strangely susceptible to any allusion to that episode of his earlier Australian experience.
[192]BOOKS AT BARRACABOO.A Sketch.PART I.Theywere all very sore at Barracaboo station. From manager to horse-boy, from jackaroo to boundary-rider, they felt aggrieved and vengeful. First it had been ‘Around the World by Sea and Land,’ copiously illustrated, and in monthly parts. This was dull—unutterably dull—and each instalment turned out duller and heavier than the last. Also, the pictures resembled those on the specimen sheets as nearly as a mule does a grindstone.After this came ‘Diseases of All Known Domestic Animals,’ with gorgeously coloured pictures. As nothing could be found in the whole work relating to horses or cattle or dogs, except the illustrations, this was also voted a fraud. However, they cut out the plates, and stuck them upon the walls of the huts and cottages, so that it was not clear loss altogether.[192a][Illustration][Illustration:Started back to Atlanta, pursued for half the distance with thunderous whip-crackings. (Page 194.)]But the last straw was ‘The Universal Biography of Eminent Men—Dead and Alive,’ with splendid portraits.[193]When they discovered that the notices they had been led to expect of their own ‘Boss,’ ‘Hungry’ Parkes of Humpalong, the Mayor of Atlanta, etc., etc., were absent, and their places filled by paragraphs and woodcuts relating to Nelson, Julius Cæsar, Pompey, Scipio Africanus, and such-like characters, they one and all bucked, and refused to pay on delivery. Then they were hauled to Quarter Sessions, confronted with their signatures, and made to pay.In vain they swore that the thing had never been ordered; that it wasn’t up to specification; that their handwriting was a palpable forgery. In vain they related how they had never touched it, but had left their copies lying on verandahs, stockyard posts, in mud, in dust, wherever, in fact, the agent had chanced to bail them up. All in vain; they had to pay—costs and all.Therefore was it that Barracaboo had forsworn literature by sample, or in uncertain instalments, and vowed vengeance upon all shabby men with indelible pencils, and printed agreements with a space left for signature. More especially had they a ‘down’ on people who wore goatees and snuffled when they talked.‘If you see one of ’em at the station,’ said the manager—a rough, tough old customer, and disappointed at being ousted by Julius Cæsar—‘set the dogs on him. I’ll pay damages. If he don’t take that hint, touch him up with stockwhips. It’ll only be justifiable homicide at the worst. I know the law: an’ I don’t mind a fiver in such a case!’[194]‘Let us only get a chance, sorr,’ said the sheep-overseer, ‘an’ we’ll learn ’em betther manners wid our whups. Doggin’s too good for the thrash!’This state of affairs was pretty well known at Atlanta, the neighbouring township; and book-fiends, warned, generally gave Barracaboo a wide berth. Once, certainly, a new hand at the game, and one who fancied himself too much to bother about collecting local information, came boldly into the station-yard just as the bell was ringing for dinner, and produced the advance sheets of a sweet and lively work, entitled, ‘Hermits, Ancient and Modern: Illustrated with Forty-seven Choice Engravings.’He had got to ‘Now, gentlemen,’ when, hearing the howl of execration that went up, he suddenly took in the situation andstarted back to Atlanta, pursued for half the distance with thunderous whip-crackings by the sheep-overseer and the butcher, who were the only two who happened to have their horses ready.Chancing to have a capital mount, he distanced them and galloped into town, and up the main street, reins on his horse’s neck, and trousers over his knees, half dead with fright, only to be promptly summoned and fined for furious riding within the municipality.For weeks afterwards sheets of ‘Hermits’ strewed the ‘cleared line,’ and he received a merciless chaffing from his fellow-fiends, who could have warned him what to expect had he confided his destination to them.About this time came to Atlanta a small, ’cute-looking, clean-shaven, elderly man. He was unknown to any[195]present, but modestly admitted that he was in the book trade, and had a consignment with him. And he listened with interest to the conversation in the ‘Commercial Room.’‘The district’s petered out,’ remarked a tall American gentleman, with the goatee and nasal voice abhorred of Barracaboo. ‘Clean petered out since that last “Universal Biography” business. They’re kickin’ everywhere. Darned if a feller didn’t draw a bead on me yesterday afore I’d time almost to explain business. Then he got so mad that I left, not wantin’ to become a lead mine.’‘Been here a week and haven’t cleared exes.,’ said another mournfully. ‘Off to-morrow. No use trying to work such a desert as this now.’‘Big place, this station with the funny name, you’re talkin’ about?’ asked the newcomer, who had introduced himself as ‘Mr Potts, from London.’‘Over a hundred men of one sort or another all the year round,’ was the reply. ‘Capital shop for us, once too. But it’s sudden death to venture there now. I did real good biz at Barracaboo for the Shuffle Litho. Company. It wouldn’t pay, though, to chance back again.’‘Ah, that was the “Around the World” thing, wasn’t it? Didn’t come up to guarantee, eh?’‘Well, hardly,’ replied the other. ‘However, that wasn’t my fault, you know. All I had to do was to get the orders, which I did to the tune of a couple of hundred or thereabout.’[196]‘That’s the worst of those things,’ said Mr Potts. ‘Instalments always make a mess of it. Then the agent loses his character, if nothing else. I was out delivering in the Western District for Shuffle Litho., and was glad to get away by the skin of my teeth. Butit’s not only the personal danger I object to,’ continued Mr Potts, after a pause. ‘It is the, ahem, the moral degradation involved in such a pursuit—you know what I mean, sir?’‘Just so, just so,’ answered the other vaguely, with a hard stare at the round, red face looming through cigar smoke.‘That’s what made me throw the line up,’ went on Mr Potts, ‘more than anything else. The money’s not clean, sir! I’d rather carry about a ton of print, and risk selling for cash at a fractional advance upon cost price.’‘That’s all right,’ replied his companion with a grin. ‘Only take my advice, and don’t trouble Barracaboo with your ton of print, or you’ll be very apt to leave it there. They won’t give you time to open your mouth. Ask “The Hermit,” if you don’t believe me.’For a whole day Mr Potts drove around and about with a selection from his stock.But he never was allowed even a chance to exhibit a sample. Farmers, selectors, squatters, townsfolk, had all apparently quite made up their minds.Times out of number he was threatened with personal violence, and greeted with language quite unprintable here.Once sticks were thrown at him; and once an[197]old copy of the ‘Biography’ was hurled into the buggy, whilst cattle-dogs were heeling his horses. Clearly it was useless to persist. The district was fairly demoralised; and with a sigh, Mr Potts drove home to receive the ‘What did I tell you’s’ of the other ‘gents.’But he was a resourceful man was Mr Potts, and he determined, before leaving the district for ever, to have one more attempt under conditions which should, at all events, give him an opportunity of displaying a specimen of his goods. Besides, he thirsted for vengeance on the community, and knew that if he could but get an opening it was his, full and complete.. . . . . . . . . .‘No objection to my camping here to-night, I s’pose?’ asked a rather forlorn-looking traveller of the cook at Barracaboo, shortly after the events related above.‘Chop that heap o’ wood up, an’ you gets your supper an’ breakfus’,’ said the cook, laconically.The traveller worked hard for an hour, and finished his task, handling the axe as if born to it, and provoking the cook’s admiration to such an extent that he went one better than his promise, and proffered a pint of tea and a lump of ‘brownie.’Presently, lighting his pipe, and undoing his swag, the new-comer, remarking that there was nothing like a read for passing the time away, took out a gorgeously bound volume, sat down at the table, and was soon so interested that he let his pipe go out. Save for the cook, the long kitchen was empty, all the men being away on the run.[198]For a time, busy with a batch of bread, the former took no notice of the stranger. Then, his work done, he came and looked over his shoulder, saying, ‘What you got there, mate?’‘Finest thing ever you read,’ said the other, carelessly turning over some vivid pictures. “The Life and Adventures of Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, and Other Eminent Outlaws.” Something like a book this is,’ he continued. ‘Six hundred pages full of love and murder; and that excitin’ you can’t bear to put it down!’This was charming; and the cook, and the butcher, and a couple of boundary riders dropped in for a yarn, at once became inquisitive, and anxious to have a look.‘See here,’ said the owner of the wonderful volume, pointing to an outrageous effort in coloured process, ‘this is the bold Dick Turpin on his wonderful mare, Black Bess, taking the ten-foot gate on the road to York. See, he’s got the reins in his teeth and a pistol in each hand.’‘By gum, she’s a flyer!’ ‘Twig the long-necked spurs.’ ‘No knee-pads to the saddle either!’ ‘Ten foot! there ain’t a horse in Hostralia as could do it!’—exclaimed his audience, becoming excited.‘And here you have,’ went on the traveller, ‘the gentle highwayman, Claude Duval, stickin’ up the Duke of York’s coach on ’Oundslow ’Eath. And here he is again, dancing under the moon with the Duchess.’ And so he continued, setting forth in tempting sequence the[199]glories of the work, pausing at intervals to read aloud thrilling bits, and comment upon them.‘Where did you get it, mate?’ at length asked the cook.‘Bought it in Atlanta,’ replied the other. ‘Fellow there’s got lots of ’em, and only thirty bob apiece. Cheap at double the price, I reckon, considerin’ the amoun’ of readin’ in it.’‘Ain’t no deliv’rin’ numbers, or signin’ ’greements, or any o’ that game?’ asked one suspiciously. ‘’Cause if there is, we’re full.’‘No,’ was the reply; ‘you pays your money and you takes your bargain. But I don’t think you fellows’ll ever get the chance. I heard him say he’d as soon face a mad bull as come to this station.’The men, of whom the hut was now full, laughed; and saidone,—‘The chap as sells, out an’ out, an honest article like that un needn’t be scared. It’s them coves as gets you to sign things, and keeps sendin’ a lot o’ rotten trash, not a bit like what you seen furst; an’ then comes, as flash as you please, summonsin’ of you an’ a-gettin’ of you bullyragged in Court—them’s the coves as we’ve got a derry on. Let’s have another squint at that pitcher o’ Dick Turpin an’ Black Bess, mates.’‘Give you five bob on your bargain!’ shouted a tall stockman, presently, from the outer edge of the circle, where he had been impatiently waiting for a look.‘Couldn’t part with it,’ said the owner decidedly.[200]‘But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’m going back to the township to-morrow. If the chap ain’t gone, I’ll let him know he can sell a few here. He might venture if you’ll all give your word not to go for him when he does come. He’s got lots of others, too. There’s “The Bloody Robber of the Blue Mountains,” and “The Pirate’s Bride,” and “The Boundin’ Outlaws of the Backwoods,” and plenty more—all same price, and all pictures and covers same as this one is.’‘Right! Tell him to come! It was pay-day yesterday,’ yelled the crowd unanimously.‘Not a bad night’s work, I do believe,’ muttered the traveller to himself, as he reluctantly stretched out on the hard bunk-boards. ‘I hope, though, this confounded beard and moustache won’t come off while I’m asleep, if I ever do get any on such a bed.’PART II.‘Isyour life insured?’ ‘You’ll get sudden notice to vamosethe ranche, sir!’ ‘Mind the dogs!’ ‘Look out for whips!’ ‘You’ll lose your stock!’Such were some of the warnings and admonitions dealt out to Mr Potts by his friends, as he heavily[201]loaded his buggy preparatory to starting for Barracaboo.‘I’ll chance it!’ said he. ‘Haven’t sold a cent’s worth yet; and it’s the only place I haven’t tried. They can’t very well kill a fellow, anyhow. I’ll chance it; faint heart never won fair lady!’‘Give you five pounds to one you don’t deal!’ cried one.‘Give you five pounds to one you’re hunted!’ shouted ‘The Hermit.’‘Bet you slap-up feed for the crowd to-night, and wine thrown in, that somethin’s broke afore you come back,’ said the American gentleman.‘Done, and done, and done,’ replied Mr Potts placidly, as he carefully booked the wagers and drove off; whilst the bystanders, to a man, agreed to delay their departure for the sake of not only eating a cheap dinner, but witnessing a return which they were all convinced would be ‘as good as a play.’But they were mistaken. Mr Potts was received at Barracaboo with open arms, no one recognising in the clean-shaven features those of the bearded, dilapidated swagman who had the other night spied out the lay of the land and the leanings of its people. The manager was absent; but the overseer, who had already by personal inspection satisfied himself of the merits of ‘Bold Dick Turpin,’ etc., was amongst the earliest purchasers.‘Everything went like wildfire. Mr Potts could hardly hand them out fast enough. Those present[202]bought for others away on the run, and in a very short time there were only three volumes left.These were of a different calibre to the rest of the rubbish, being nothing less than ‘The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha,’ with illustrations by Gustave Doré. However, as no one would even look at them at the price—five pounds—the dealer, having pretty well cleaned out ‘the Hut,’ determined to try his luck at ‘the House.’Now, it happened that Mrs Morris, the manager’s wife, wished just at this time to buy something for her eldest boy, whose birthday was approaching. Recognising, as a reading woman, that the work was genuine, and not more than a pound or two over price, she bought it. It was so much less trouble than sending to the capital, with a chance of disappointment.‘It’ll do very nicely for Master Reginald,’ quoth she; ‘I’m sure he’ll be pleased with it. And I’m glad to see that you people are at last beginning to carry something better than the usual lot of trash. I hope you did well amongst the men with these standard works?’‘Very nicely indeed, thank you, ma’am,’ replied Mr Potts, smiling, as he bowed and withdrew.. . . . . . . . . .John, the waiter, had twice informed the ‘commercial gents’ that dinner was ready, before the anxious watchers saw the man who was expected to pay for it drive into the yard of the hotel.[203]‘He looks kinder spry,’ remarked the American gentleman disappointedly. ‘Guess he’s got clear off with a caution this once.’‘Buggy seems to run light,’ chimed in another. ‘Shouldn’t wonder if they’d unloaded it into the river.’‘Never had such a haul since I’ve been in the business, gentlemen!’ exclaimed Mr Potts, as he presently entered the dining-room with a big roll of paper in his hand. ‘There must have been some mistake about the place. Why, they’re the mildest crowd you’d see in a day’s march. Sellin’ ’em books is like tea-drinkin’. It actually kept me goin’ as fast as I could to change their stuff for ’em. Here, you know the Barracaboo cheques. Look at this, and count ’em, one of you. Blessed if I’ve had time! I hope dinner’s ready. Never let me hear a word against Barracaboo after this!’There was a long silence of utter astonishment, during which the American rapidly thumbed strips of green paper, and made mental calculations.‘Eight hundred dollars!’ exclaimed he, at last, in tones of unalloyed admiration. ‘Mister Potts, sir, you’re a gifted genius! I ante-up, Colonel, to once, an’ allow I’ll take a back seat.’And so, in their several fashions, said the rest; whilst the lion of the evening ate his dinner, sipped his porphyry, and kept his own counsel.‘Cost me four bob, landed in Sydney, averaging the lot,’ said Mr Potts confidentially to a friend that evening, as they enjoyed their coffee and cigars[204]on the balcony. ‘I’m on my own hook, too, now. I seen that the specimen-sheet-monthly-delivery-collection-per-agent game was blown—not that I guessed it was near as bad as it really is. So I sends straight away to New York for this consignment, specially got up and prepared for the Bush. It was a regular bobby-dazzler! You see, the boards are only stuck on with glue, type and paper’s as rough as they make ’em, and the picturin’s done by a cheap colour patent. I’ve got another lot nearly due by this—not for here, though. You fellows have ruined this district. Of course the Dorees was genuine. I bought the three of ’em a job lot in town for a song. They’re the only books I’ve got left now. If I’d had a score more of Turpins and such, I could have sold ’em at the station.’. . . . . . . . . .‘There’s old Morris, of Barracaboo, just come in,’ remarked someone the next morning. ‘He’s on his way home from Larras Show, I expect.’‘Which is him?’ asked Mr Potts eagerly (all literary people are not necessarily purists).‘Sorry to disturb you at lunch, sir,’ said Mr Potts presently, as he entered, bearing a large book. ‘But Mrs Morris was kind enough to say that this would do nicely for Master Reginald’s birthday. ‘Don Quixote,’ sir, the most startling work of that celebrated author, Gustavus Do-ree, sir. Splendidly illustrated, sir. Your good lady was very much pleased with it.’[205]‘Umph, umph,’ growled the manager. ‘Been out at the station, eh? Didn’t they run you, eh? No whips, no dogs! Eh! eh! What?’‘I am not an advance agent for books I know nothing about, sir,’ returned the other with dignity, as he took the volume up again. ‘I sell a genuine article, sir, for cash on the nail. In transactions of that kind there can be no mistake, sir.’‘Umph!’ growled the squatter doubtfully. ‘Well, as long as the missus says it’s all right, I s’pose it is. How much?’He paid without a murmur. Mrs M. was a lady who stood no trifling.‘Wrap the thing up and put it in the buggy,’ said he. ‘Gad, it’s as big as the station ledger! Look sharp, now, I’m in a hurry!’‘So am I,’ quoth Mr Potts, as he returned. ‘John, what time does the next train start?’. . . . . . . . . .When the manager reached home that afternoon with ‘Don Quixote,’ and compared notes and books, there was a row, the upshot of which was that he received orders to hurry off at once in pursuit, and avenge the trick played upon them.‘You’re a J.P.,’ stormed the lady, ‘and if you can’t give that oily villain three months, what’s the use of you? Besides, isn’t five pounds worth recovering?’Mr Morris would much sooner have let the matter drop quietly. No man likes to publicly advertise[206]the fact of his having been duped, least of all by a book-fiend.‘Well, well, my dear,’ said he at last, ‘never mind. I’ll go directly. I’ve got some letters to write first But I’ll send M‘Fadyen into town to see the fellow doesn’t get away.’‘Tell him,’ said the manager, as the overseer was preparing to start, ‘tell him I’m coming in presently, about—um—er—about a book. Oh, and if he gives you anything, perhaps you’d better take it. No use,’ he muttered to himself, with a side glance to where his wife sat, ‘letting all hands and the cook know one’s business. The beggar ’ll only be too glad to stump up when he finds I’m in earnest. Thought, I suppose, that I wouldn’t bother about it, eh, what!’Inquiring at the ‘Royal,’ the overseer was told that Mr Potts had left; although, perhaps, if he hastened, he might yet see him, as the train hadn’t started. Sure enough, galloping up to the station and searching along the carriages, he found his man just making himself comfortable in smoking-cap and slippers.‘Be jakers, mister,’ he gasped breathlessly, ‘the Boss wants to see ye badly! Have ye got anythin’ for him? It’s of a book he was spakin’. Tould me to tell ye that he’d be in himself directly.’‘Too late! Can’t stop! Time’s up!’ replied Mr Potts. ‘But’—rising to the occasion, and taking the last copy of ‘Do-ree’ out of his portmanteau—‘this[207]is it. It’s for Master Reginald’s birthday. Your Boss wouldn’t miss having it for three times the money. Six pounds—quick!’In a desperate flurry, the overseer ransacked his pockets. No; he could only muster four.‘All right, guard, wait a minute!’ he yelled as, borrowing the balance, he clutched the book, whilst the train, giving a screech, moved away, with Mr Potts nodding and grinning a friendly farewell.‘Be kicked now!’ exclaimed the overseer, ‘if that wasn’t a close shave! The Boss oughter think himself lucky, so he ought!’So, carrying the book carefully under his arm, he jogged Barracaboowards.Half way he met Mr Morris coming in at full speed.‘No hurry in loife, sorr!’ cried the overseer, beamingly, and showing ‘Don Quixote.’ ‘I ped six notes for it, an’ had to borrow two. It was just touch an’ go, though, so it was!’
A Sketch.
Theywere all very sore at Barracaboo station. From manager to horse-boy, from jackaroo to boundary-rider, they felt aggrieved and vengeful. First it had been ‘Around the World by Sea and Land,’ copiously illustrated, and in monthly parts. This was dull—unutterably dull—and each instalment turned out duller and heavier than the last. Also, the pictures resembled those on the specimen sheets as nearly as a mule does a grindstone.
After this came ‘Diseases of All Known Domestic Animals,’ with gorgeously coloured pictures. As nothing could be found in the whole work relating to horses or cattle or dogs, except the illustrations, this was also voted a fraud. However, they cut out the plates, and stuck them upon the walls of the huts and cottages, so that it was not clear loss altogether.
[192a][Illustration][Illustration:Started back to Atlanta, pursued for half the distance with thunderous whip-crackings. (Page 194.)]
[Illustration:Started back to Atlanta, pursued for half the distance with thunderous whip-crackings. (Page 194.)]
But the last straw was ‘The Universal Biography of Eminent Men—Dead and Alive,’ with splendid portraits.[193]When they discovered that the notices they had been led to expect of their own ‘Boss,’ ‘Hungry’ Parkes of Humpalong, the Mayor of Atlanta, etc., etc., were absent, and their places filled by paragraphs and woodcuts relating to Nelson, Julius Cæsar, Pompey, Scipio Africanus, and such-like characters, they one and all bucked, and refused to pay on delivery. Then they were hauled to Quarter Sessions, confronted with their signatures, and made to pay.
In vain they swore that the thing had never been ordered; that it wasn’t up to specification; that their handwriting was a palpable forgery. In vain they related how they had never touched it, but had left their copies lying on verandahs, stockyard posts, in mud, in dust, wherever, in fact, the agent had chanced to bail them up. All in vain; they had to pay—costs and all.
Therefore was it that Barracaboo had forsworn literature by sample, or in uncertain instalments, and vowed vengeance upon all shabby men with indelible pencils, and printed agreements with a space left for signature. More especially had they a ‘down’ on people who wore goatees and snuffled when they talked.
‘If you see one of ’em at the station,’ said the manager—a rough, tough old customer, and disappointed at being ousted by Julius Cæsar—‘set the dogs on him. I’ll pay damages. If he don’t take that hint, touch him up with stockwhips. It’ll only be justifiable homicide at the worst. I know the law: an’ I don’t mind a fiver in such a case!’
[194]‘Let us only get a chance, sorr,’ said the sheep-overseer, ‘an’ we’ll learn ’em betther manners wid our whups. Doggin’s too good for the thrash!’
This state of affairs was pretty well known at Atlanta, the neighbouring township; and book-fiends, warned, generally gave Barracaboo a wide berth. Once, certainly, a new hand at the game, and one who fancied himself too much to bother about collecting local information, came boldly into the station-yard just as the bell was ringing for dinner, and produced the advance sheets of a sweet and lively work, entitled, ‘Hermits, Ancient and Modern: Illustrated with Forty-seven Choice Engravings.’
He had got to ‘Now, gentlemen,’ when, hearing the howl of execration that went up, he suddenly took in the situation andstarted back to Atlanta, pursued for half the distance with thunderous whip-crackings by the sheep-overseer and the butcher, who were the only two who happened to have their horses ready.
Chancing to have a capital mount, he distanced them and galloped into town, and up the main street, reins on his horse’s neck, and trousers over his knees, half dead with fright, only to be promptly summoned and fined for furious riding within the municipality.
For weeks afterwards sheets of ‘Hermits’ strewed the ‘cleared line,’ and he received a merciless chaffing from his fellow-fiends, who could have warned him what to expect had he confided his destination to them.
About this time came to Atlanta a small, ’cute-looking, clean-shaven, elderly man. He was unknown to any[195]present, but modestly admitted that he was in the book trade, and had a consignment with him. And he listened with interest to the conversation in the ‘Commercial Room.’
‘The district’s petered out,’ remarked a tall American gentleman, with the goatee and nasal voice abhorred of Barracaboo. ‘Clean petered out since that last “Universal Biography” business. They’re kickin’ everywhere. Darned if a feller didn’t draw a bead on me yesterday afore I’d time almost to explain business. Then he got so mad that I left, not wantin’ to become a lead mine.’
‘Been here a week and haven’t cleared exes.,’ said another mournfully. ‘Off to-morrow. No use trying to work such a desert as this now.’
‘Big place, this station with the funny name, you’re talkin’ about?’ asked the newcomer, who had introduced himself as ‘Mr Potts, from London.’
‘Over a hundred men of one sort or another all the year round,’ was the reply. ‘Capital shop for us, once too. But it’s sudden death to venture there now. I did real good biz at Barracaboo for the Shuffle Litho. Company. It wouldn’t pay, though, to chance back again.’
‘Ah, that was the “Around the World” thing, wasn’t it? Didn’t come up to guarantee, eh?’
‘Well, hardly,’ replied the other. ‘However, that wasn’t my fault, you know. All I had to do was to get the orders, which I did to the tune of a couple of hundred or thereabout.’
[196]‘That’s the worst of those things,’ said Mr Potts. ‘Instalments always make a mess of it. Then the agent loses his character, if nothing else. I was out delivering in the Western District for Shuffle Litho., and was glad to get away by the skin of my teeth. Butit’s not only the personal danger I object to,’ continued Mr Potts, after a pause. ‘It is the, ahem, the moral degradation involved in such a pursuit—you know what I mean, sir?’
‘Just so, just so,’ answered the other vaguely, with a hard stare at the round, red face looming through cigar smoke.
‘That’s what made me throw the line up,’ went on Mr Potts, ‘more than anything else. The money’s not clean, sir! I’d rather carry about a ton of print, and risk selling for cash at a fractional advance upon cost price.’
‘That’s all right,’ replied his companion with a grin. ‘Only take my advice, and don’t trouble Barracaboo with your ton of print, or you’ll be very apt to leave it there. They won’t give you time to open your mouth. Ask “The Hermit,” if you don’t believe me.’
For a whole day Mr Potts drove around and about with a selection from his stock.
But he never was allowed even a chance to exhibit a sample. Farmers, selectors, squatters, townsfolk, had all apparently quite made up their minds.
Times out of number he was threatened with personal violence, and greeted with language quite unprintable here.Once sticks were thrown at him; and once an[197]old copy of the ‘Biography’ was hurled into the buggy, whilst cattle-dogs were heeling his horses. Clearly it was useless to persist. The district was fairly demoralised; and with a sigh, Mr Potts drove home to receive the ‘What did I tell you’s’ of the other ‘gents.’
But he was a resourceful man was Mr Potts, and he determined, before leaving the district for ever, to have one more attempt under conditions which should, at all events, give him an opportunity of displaying a specimen of his goods. Besides, he thirsted for vengeance on the community, and knew that if he could but get an opening it was his, full and complete.
. . . . . . . . . .
‘No objection to my camping here to-night, I s’pose?’ asked a rather forlorn-looking traveller of the cook at Barracaboo, shortly after the events related above.
‘Chop that heap o’ wood up, an’ you gets your supper an’ breakfus’,’ said the cook, laconically.
The traveller worked hard for an hour, and finished his task, handling the axe as if born to it, and provoking the cook’s admiration to such an extent that he went one better than his promise, and proffered a pint of tea and a lump of ‘brownie.’
Presently, lighting his pipe, and undoing his swag, the new-comer, remarking that there was nothing like a read for passing the time away, took out a gorgeously bound volume, sat down at the table, and was soon so interested that he let his pipe go out. Save for the cook, the long kitchen was empty, all the men being away on the run.
[198]For a time, busy with a batch of bread, the former took no notice of the stranger. Then, his work done, he came and looked over his shoulder, saying, ‘What you got there, mate?’
‘Finest thing ever you read,’ said the other, carelessly turning over some vivid pictures. “The Life and Adventures of Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, and Other Eminent Outlaws.” Something like a book this is,’ he continued. ‘Six hundred pages full of love and murder; and that excitin’ you can’t bear to put it down!’
This was charming; and the cook, and the butcher, and a couple of boundary riders dropped in for a yarn, at once became inquisitive, and anxious to have a look.
‘See here,’ said the owner of the wonderful volume, pointing to an outrageous effort in coloured process, ‘this is the bold Dick Turpin on his wonderful mare, Black Bess, taking the ten-foot gate on the road to York. See, he’s got the reins in his teeth and a pistol in each hand.’
‘By gum, she’s a flyer!’ ‘Twig the long-necked spurs.’ ‘No knee-pads to the saddle either!’ ‘Ten foot! there ain’t a horse in Hostralia as could do it!’—exclaimed his audience, becoming excited.
‘And here you have,’ went on the traveller, ‘the gentle highwayman, Claude Duval, stickin’ up the Duke of York’s coach on ’Oundslow ’Eath. And here he is again, dancing under the moon with the Duchess.’ And so he continued, setting forth in tempting sequence the[199]glories of the work, pausing at intervals to read aloud thrilling bits, and comment upon them.
‘Where did you get it, mate?’ at length asked the cook.
‘Bought it in Atlanta,’ replied the other. ‘Fellow there’s got lots of ’em, and only thirty bob apiece. Cheap at double the price, I reckon, considerin’ the amoun’ of readin’ in it.’
‘Ain’t no deliv’rin’ numbers, or signin’ ’greements, or any o’ that game?’ asked one suspiciously. ‘’Cause if there is, we’re full.’
‘No,’ was the reply; ‘you pays your money and you takes your bargain. But I don’t think you fellows’ll ever get the chance. I heard him say he’d as soon face a mad bull as come to this station.’
The men, of whom the hut was now full, laughed; and saidone,—
‘The chap as sells, out an’ out, an honest article like that un needn’t be scared. It’s them coves as gets you to sign things, and keeps sendin’ a lot o’ rotten trash, not a bit like what you seen furst; an’ then comes, as flash as you please, summonsin’ of you an’ a-gettin’ of you bullyragged in Court—them’s the coves as we’ve got a derry on. Let’s have another squint at that pitcher o’ Dick Turpin an’ Black Bess, mates.’
‘Give you five bob on your bargain!’ shouted a tall stockman, presently, from the outer edge of the circle, where he had been impatiently waiting for a look.
‘Couldn’t part with it,’ said the owner decidedly.[200]‘But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’m going back to the township to-morrow. If the chap ain’t gone, I’ll let him know he can sell a few here. He might venture if you’ll all give your word not to go for him when he does come. He’s got lots of others, too. There’s “The Bloody Robber of the Blue Mountains,” and “The Pirate’s Bride,” and “The Boundin’ Outlaws of the Backwoods,” and plenty more—all same price, and all pictures and covers same as this one is.’
‘Right! Tell him to come! It was pay-day yesterday,’ yelled the crowd unanimously.
‘Not a bad night’s work, I do believe,’ muttered the traveller to himself, as he reluctantly stretched out on the hard bunk-boards. ‘I hope, though, this confounded beard and moustache won’t come off while I’m asleep, if I ever do get any on such a bed.’
‘Isyour life insured?’ ‘You’ll get sudden notice to vamosethe ranche, sir!’ ‘Mind the dogs!’ ‘Look out for whips!’ ‘You’ll lose your stock!’
Such were some of the warnings and admonitions dealt out to Mr Potts by his friends, as he heavily[201]loaded his buggy preparatory to starting for Barracaboo.
‘I’ll chance it!’ said he. ‘Haven’t sold a cent’s worth yet; and it’s the only place I haven’t tried. They can’t very well kill a fellow, anyhow. I’ll chance it; faint heart never won fair lady!’
‘Give you five pounds to one you don’t deal!’ cried one.
‘Give you five pounds to one you’re hunted!’ shouted ‘The Hermit.’
‘Bet you slap-up feed for the crowd to-night, and wine thrown in, that somethin’s broke afore you come back,’ said the American gentleman.
‘Done, and done, and done,’ replied Mr Potts placidly, as he carefully booked the wagers and drove off; whilst the bystanders, to a man, agreed to delay their departure for the sake of not only eating a cheap dinner, but witnessing a return which they were all convinced would be ‘as good as a play.’
But they were mistaken. Mr Potts was received at Barracaboo with open arms, no one recognising in the clean-shaven features those of the bearded, dilapidated swagman who had the other night spied out the lay of the land and the leanings of its people. The manager was absent; but the overseer, who had already by personal inspection satisfied himself of the merits of ‘Bold Dick Turpin,’ etc., was amongst the earliest purchasers.
‘Everything went like wildfire. Mr Potts could hardly hand them out fast enough. Those present[202]bought for others away on the run, and in a very short time there were only three volumes left.
These were of a different calibre to the rest of the rubbish, being nothing less than ‘The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha,’ with illustrations by Gustave Doré. However, as no one would even look at them at the price—five pounds—the dealer, having pretty well cleaned out ‘the Hut,’ determined to try his luck at ‘the House.’
Now, it happened that Mrs Morris, the manager’s wife, wished just at this time to buy something for her eldest boy, whose birthday was approaching. Recognising, as a reading woman, that the work was genuine, and not more than a pound or two over price, she bought it. It was so much less trouble than sending to the capital, with a chance of disappointment.
‘It’ll do very nicely for Master Reginald,’ quoth she; ‘I’m sure he’ll be pleased with it. And I’m glad to see that you people are at last beginning to carry something better than the usual lot of trash. I hope you did well amongst the men with these standard works?’
‘Very nicely indeed, thank you, ma’am,’ replied Mr Potts, smiling, as he bowed and withdrew.
. . . . . . . . . .
John, the waiter, had twice informed the ‘commercial gents’ that dinner was ready, before the anxious watchers saw the man who was expected to pay for it drive into the yard of the hotel.
[203]‘He looks kinder spry,’ remarked the American gentleman disappointedly. ‘Guess he’s got clear off with a caution this once.’
‘Buggy seems to run light,’ chimed in another. ‘Shouldn’t wonder if they’d unloaded it into the river.’
‘Never had such a haul since I’ve been in the business, gentlemen!’ exclaimed Mr Potts, as he presently entered the dining-room with a big roll of paper in his hand. ‘There must have been some mistake about the place. Why, they’re the mildest crowd you’d see in a day’s march. Sellin’ ’em books is like tea-drinkin’. It actually kept me goin’ as fast as I could to change their stuff for ’em. Here, you know the Barracaboo cheques. Look at this, and count ’em, one of you. Blessed if I’ve had time! I hope dinner’s ready. Never let me hear a word against Barracaboo after this!’
There was a long silence of utter astonishment, during which the American rapidly thumbed strips of green paper, and made mental calculations.
‘Eight hundred dollars!’ exclaimed he, at last, in tones of unalloyed admiration. ‘Mister Potts, sir, you’re a gifted genius! I ante-up, Colonel, to once, an’ allow I’ll take a back seat.’
And so, in their several fashions, said the rest; whilst the lion of the evening ate his dinner, sipped his porphyry, and kept his own counsel.
‘Cost me four bob, landed in Sydney, averaging the lot,’ said Mr Potts confidentially to a friend that evening, as they enjoyed their coffee and cigars[204]on the balcony. ‘I’m on my own hook, too, now. I seen that the specimen-sheet-monthly-delivery-collection-per-agent game was blown—not that I guessed it was near as bad as it really is. So I sends straight away to New York for this consignment, specially got up and prepared for the Bush. It was a regular bobby-dazzler! You see, the boards are only stuck on with glue, type and paper’s as rough as they make ’em, and the picturin’s done by a cheap colour patent. I’ve got another lot nearly due by this—not for here, though. You fellows have ruined this district. Of course the Dorees was genuine. I bought the three of ’em a job lot in town for a song. They’re the only books I’ve got left now. If I’d had a score more of Turpins and such, I could have sold ’em at the station.’
. . . . . . . . . .
‘There’s old Morris, of Barracaboo, just come in,’ remarked someone the next morning. ‘He’s on his way home from Larras Show, I expect.’
‘Which is him?’ asked Mr Potts eagerly (all literary people are not necessarily purists).
‘Sorry to disturb you at lunch, sir,’ said Mr Potts presently, as he entered, bearing a large book. ‘But Mrs Morris was kind enough to say that this would do nicely for Master Reginald’s birthday. ‘Don Quixote,’ sir, the most startling work of that celebrated author, Gustavus Do-ree, sir. Splendidly illustrated, sir. Your good lady was very much pleased with it.’
[205]‘Umph, umph,’ growled the manager. ‘Been out at the station, eh? Didn’t they run you, eh? No whips, no dogs! Eh! eh! What?’
‘I am not an advance agent for books I know nothing about, sir,’ returned the other with dignity, as he took the volume up again. ‘I sell a genuine article, sir, for cash on the nail. In transactions of that kind there can be no mistake, sir.’
‘Umph!’ growled the squatter doubtfully. ‘Well, as long as the missus says it’s all right, I s’pose it is. How much?’
He paid without a murmur. Mrs M. was a lady who stood no trifling.
‘Wrap the thing up and put it in the buggy,’ said he. ‘Gad, it’s as big as the station ledger! Look sharp, now, I’m in a hurry!’
‘So am I,’ quoth Mr Potts, as he returned. ‘John, what time does the next train start?’
. . . . . . . . . .
When the manager reached home that afternoon with ‘Don Quixote,’ and compared notes and books, there was a row, the upshot of which was that he received orders to hurry off at once in pursuit, and avenge the trick played upon them.
‘You’re a J.P.,’ stormed the lady, ‘and if you can’t give that oily villain three months, what’s the use of you? Besides, isn’t five pounds worth recovering?’
Mr Morris would much sooner have let the matter drop quietly. No man likes to publicly advertise[206]the fact of his having been duped, least of all by a book-fiend.
‘Well, well, my dear,’ said he at last, ‘never mind. I’ll go directly. I’ve got some letters to write first But I’ll send M‘Fadyen into town to see the fellow doesn’t get away.’
‘Tell him,’ said the manager, as the overseer was preparing to start, ‘tell him I’m coming in presently, about—um—er—about a book. Oh, and if he gives you anything, perhaps you’d better take it. No use,’ he muttered to himself, with a side glance to where his wife sat, ‘letting all hands and the cook know one’s business. The beggar ’ll only be too glad to stump up when he finds I’m in earnest. Thought, I suppose, that I wouldn’t bother about it, eh, what!’
Inquiring at the ‘Royal,’ the overseer was told that Mr Potts had left; although, perhaps, if he hastened, he might yet see him, as the train hadn’t started. Sure enough, galloping up to the station and searching along the carriages, he found his man just making himself comfortable in smoking-cap and slippers.
‘Be jakers, mister,’ he gasped breathlessly, ‘the Boss wants to see ye badly! Have ye got anythin’ for him? It’s of a book he was spakin’. Tould me to tell ye that he’d be in himself directly.’
‘Too late! Can’t stop! Time’s up!’ replied Mr Potts. ‘But’—rising to the occasion, and taking the last copy of ‘Do-ree’ out of his portmanteau—‘this[207]is it. It’s for Master Reginald’s birthday. Your Boss wouldn’t miss having it for three times the money. Six pounds—quick!’
In a desperate flurry, the overseer ransacked his pockets. No; he could only muster four.
‘All right, guard, wait a minute!’ he yelled as, borrowing the balance, he clutched the book, whilst the train, giving a screech, moved away, with Mr Potts nodding and grinning a friendly farewell.
‘Be kicked now!’ exclaimed the overseer, ‘if that wasn’t a close shave! The Boss oughter think himself lucky, so he ought!’
So, carrying the book carefully under his arm, he jogged Barracaboowards.
Half way he met Mr Morris coming in at full speed.
‘No hurry in loife, sorr!’ cried the overseer, beamingly, and showing ‘Don Quixote.’ ‘I ped six notes for it, an’ had to borrow two. It was just touch an’ go, though, so it was!’