The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dashwoods
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Title: The Dashwoods
a sequel to "On an Australian farm"
Author: Steele Rudd
Illustrator: Claude Marquet
Release date: March 15, 2026 [eBook #78216]
Language: English
Original publication: Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co. Ltd, 1920
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78216
Credits: MWS, Matthew Sleadd, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DASHWOODS ***
Transcriber's Notes
Italic represented by underscores surrounding the _italic text_.
Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPS.
THE DASHWOODS
A SEQUEL TO
“ON AN AUSTRALIAN FARM”
BY
STEELE RUDD
(A.H. DAVIS)
AUTHOR OF “On Our Selection;” “Our New Selection;”
“Sandy’s Selection;” “Back at Our Selection,” &c.
_With Fifteen full-page Illustrations by Claude Marquet_
N.S.W. BOOKSTALL CO., LTD.
SYDNEY.
1920
_All Dramatic and Picture Rights Reserved._
_Copyrighted, 1911 by_ ALFRED CECIL ROWLANDSON,
_26 Cremorne Road, Cremorne, and 476 George Street, Sydney,_
_Australia_.
Wholly set up and printed in Australia by
John Sands Limited, Sydney.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. Page.
STAUNTON, JUNIOR 1
CHAPTER II.
IT WAS WILL 21
CHAPTER III.
THE FAMILY VISIT THE THEATRE 34
CHAPTER IV.
THE SHERIFF’S FAITHFUL MAN 60
CHAPTER V.
A LEADING BARRISTER 87
CHAPTER VI.
MEETING McCLURE 104
CHAPTER VII.
JAMES AND PETER ATTEND CHURCH 122
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 132
CHAPTER IX.
PETER IN THE BREAKERS 143
CHAPTER X.
HOME AGAIN 154
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page.
IN THE SALE ROOM 13
A BREACH OF FRIENDSHIP 25
AT THE THEATRE 41
MARIA’S BABY 51
DEALING WITH THE JUDGE’S ORDER 65
IN THE WRONG BOX 85
ONE IN THE MORNING 91
“BOOTS O!” 99
MCCLURE’S HAT 109
DUNCAN APPROVES 117
THE CHURCH COLLECTION 129
“NOW, THEN, SPOFFORTH!” 135
“GUESS WHO!” 141
IN THE BREAKERS 151
PETER’S LATEST 161
CHAPTER I.
Staunton, Junior.
The Dashwoods had been a full week in the great metropolis. Each day
they visited different localities, and each day fresh wonders and
glories were revealed to them.
They all enjoyed the city—all but Mrs. Dashwood and Maria. The former
tired of it after the first day, and saw nothing to enthuse about.
There was nothing real, nothing natural there, to appeal to her homely
spirit. In her heart she longed to be back at “Fairfield”—longed to
be amongst the fowls, and the ducks, and the dairy cows, and to see
again the great wheatfields, and the blue peaks of the ranges, and vast
plainlands stretching far away to the boundless west. But for the sake
of the others she endured, without complaint, the stuffy, noisy, dirty
streets of the artificial city, with its crowds of jostling humanity.
She even pretended to share the joys and excitements of her family, and
almost ran her legs off chasing trains and trams to please and humour
them. An unselfish mother was Mrs. Dashwood, who lived to make life
light and bright for those around her.
As for Maria, she liked the city “right enough,” but nobody, she
reckoned, “could see anything, or go anywhere in peace with a blessed
baby to look after.” And one day, when in extreme distress about the
infant, she threatened to leave the encumbrance at home with its father
the next time she came to town. To which resolution Tilly fervently
said “Amen,” and fired Maria’s family pride. She flew into a temper,
and proceeded to call Tilly names, and to remind her of things she
did when at school, but Mrs. Dashwood intervened in time to save the
situation and preserve the family name.
“Well, Ah baint be goin’ weth yow to-day,” old John informed the
family at the breakfast table, “mah old friend, Robert Staunton, has
herd we’re dahn, an’ writes sayin’ as he wants to see me perticler. He
called twahce a’ready, but we moost abeen aht soomewheres he thenks.”
Mrs. Dashwood wondered how the Stauntons were getting along.
“They roons a produce place soomewheres,” old John answered, “but Ah
don’t know wheres exactly yet, Eliza.”
Hailing a waiter scurrying past with two trays of “returned empties” in
his hands, old John questioned him.
“Staunton & Staunton, Solicitors?” interrogated the waiter.
“Hoh! hoh! hoh!—Noh-h,” laughed old John, “none o’ thet kidney. He be
too honest for thet; Robert’s a big man—bigger’n _me_; an’ his wahfe’s
a big woman. Theey’re both old friends o’ ahn—ever since theey coomed
to th’ coontry, and——”
The waiter was impatient and broke in on old John.
“Well, there are several gentlemen in the city bigger than you, sir,”
he answered, “but I’ll enquire at the office,” and away he glided.
“Ah-h,” muttered old John, “Ah-h!”
Tilly and Polly followed the flunkey’s flying coat-tails with their
eyes, and smiled.
“A wery erbligin’ young man thet be,” said old John, “wery erbligin’.”
“When there’s half-a-crown put into his hand, father. Ha! ha! ha,” from
Peter.
“Well, Ah dedn’t give ’n no half-crahn, lad,” replied the parent, in
defence of the waiter.
“No, but I did, yesterday,” from Peter.
James looked up quickly, and stared at his brother as at one who had
suddenly gone out of his mind. Tilly and Polly opened their eyes in
wonder, and exclaimed simultaneously:
“_You_, Peter?”
James struggled hard to suppress his merriment.
“What, _yow_ gin him half-a-crahn?” old John asked, in astonishment.
Peter nodded, but deemed it wise to offer no explanation.
“Did you give it to him in mistake for a penny, Peter?” Tilly asked,
with a nasty giggle, in which the others joined.
“No,” Peter answered; “a gentleman was leaving in a cab yesterday, and
he left it with me to give to him,” and he let off a laugh that made
even those at the most distant table look up.
Tilly and Polly and James felt ashamed of their brother, but old John
saw only the joke.
“Wery good,” he said; “yow hed ’n all thet tahme, lad, yow hed ’n raht
enoof.”
They finished breakfast.
“Well, we’re going for a trip in the _Kangaroo_ to Bung Island,” Tilly
said, rising; and speaking for the female portion of the party; “I
don’t know what James and Peter intend to do.”
“I’m off again in that train that goes to America,” Peter said, with a
cheerful chuckle. “It’s the best fun of th’ lot.”
“To Amerikee?” old John repeated curiously; “yow’ll want summat to go
theer with, lad.”
“Well, I want a couple o’ shillings, anyhow,” Peter said, glad of the
chance to apply for some more funds. “I haven’t a sixpence left,” and
he turned a pocket of his vest inside out.
Polly and Tilly accused Peter of imposing upon the good nature of
their parent, and declared he hadn’t spent a shilling of his money.
“H’m!... Ah-h,” said old John, thoughtfully, then turning to his other
son: “An’ where be yow goin’, James?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” James drawled, “I mightn’t go anywhere.”
“What’s the use of asking _him_, father?” Peter said, with a grin,
“he’ll be off to spend the day again in the Art Gallery, gaping at
those old mares with their heads and tails cocked, squealing for their
foals. ‘The Cry of the Mothers’; isn’t that what it is called, James”
(grinning at his brother). “He looked at it for two hours yesterday.”
James treated his brother with contempt.
“Oh, well,” Polly said, fumbling with her gloves, and glancing round
to see that no outsiders were listening, “when James goes home, Peter,
perhaps he’ll be able to paint a picture of a donkey with its ears
cocked, which he’ll call ‘The Bray of the Brother.’”
James treated his brother to a broad grin, while Peter forced a short
“ha! ha!” and rolled his eyes about.
“She wer’ too smart for yow thet tahme, lad,” old John said, with a
broad smile. “Too smart!” and, rolling his serviette into a heap, he
rose and led the way out. The others followed in single file.
* * * * *
The meeting of old John and Robert Staunton, the burly produce dealer,
was a strenuous and boisterous affair. They greeted each other like two
roaring lions conducting a courtship. Their handshake was an exhibition
of strength and endurance.
“Blest if I ever saw you looking so well, John,” Robert hollered,
caressing the plump hand of his country friend and looking into his
eyes. “Why, you’re got up like a Suffolk Punch.”
“Ah-h,” rejoined old John, “An’ Ah’ve sin wus Clahdesdales nor yow,
Robert. Hoh! hoh! hoh!”
Then they “hoh-hoh-hoh-ed” together, and hit each other on the back,
and rocked about, and finally adjourned to the “Lounge” room, of which
they soon became the sole occupants.
“Oh, Ah’ve been adoin’ well for a long tahme, now,” old John said, in
answer to the other’s enquiries about his welfare. “Seasons baint be
lahke ’n were in olden days, Robert. Markets are fairish, now, an’
lan’s gone oop won’erful. People on th’ lan’s doin’ pretty well, an’
they’ll do a lot better yet. There be soome as be a bit frahtent, tho’,
o’ th’ Labour Party an’ th’ Lan’ Tax, but——”
“But surely _you_ don’t believe in a Land Tax, John?” Robert broke in
in tones of surprise.
“Ah _do_, then, Robert,” was the answer, “an’ Ah thinks it’s what’ll
make th’ country all round—anyways, thet’s how it seems to me.”
“For the life of me, John, I can’t see how it’s going to do anything of
the kind. How can it, when it’s going to tax the farmer right off his
land?”
Old John laughed.
“Robert,” he said, tapping his friend on the shoulder, “thet’s what th’
noospapers tells yow, them as will have to pay for theer footin’. But
don’t yow believe ’n. They only wants th’ farmer to fight theer battles
for ’n. No, no-h, th’ Lan’ Tax won’t hurt th’ farmer what _farms_,
it’ll _help_ him. But the one as don’t farm, but sits on the land lahke
a dug in th’ manger, will have to skedaddle and make room for him as
wants it; an’ where theer be only one farm now, theer will be three
or four bahme-by, which will all mean, Robert, thet theer will be a
lot more produce for yow to sell on commission, an’ a lot more boots
an’ shoes an’ tea an’ kerosene sold by th’ storekeeper, and a lot more
drays and waggons and horses used up. Anyway, thet’s what it all seems
to me, Robert, but if yow can show as it waint be thet way, well, Ah’m
prepared to listen to yow.”
But Robert held no views other than what he had already briefly
expressed.
“Well, of course,” he said, slowly, “if they don’t touch the small
farmer, it will be all right, I suppose. And if, as you say, it will
mean more produce for me to sell, well, then, John, I’m with it all the
time,” and he laughed cheerfully.
“Yow be a hopportunist, then, Robert,” and old John laughed on his own
account.
The conversation turned to family affairs, and, according to Robert,
two of his daughters were married and living happily with their
respective husbands on allotments in the suburbs. Another, Mary Ellen,
was only “engaged,” and was employed in the “fancy” department of one
of the large establishments.
“But, Will, my eldest boy,” he went on, “I’m not sure what to make of
him. I’d like him to take to the land if he would; but I wanted to get
your advice about him first, John, before putting out money in a farm
for him. You see, I don’t want to find out that he’s not fitted for it,
or that it’s not fitted for him, when it’s too late. I want to be sure
beforehand.”
“How old be ’n?” asked old John, with the air of a medico inquiring
about the constitution of his patient.
“He’s getting on for twenty,” Robert answered, “but to look at him,
I’m blowed if you would think he was more than fifteen,” and added,
with a look of pride in his eye, “all our youngsters look a lot younger
than they are, though. You remember how young and frisky my old father
looked at seventy-five, and who would ever think that I was getting on
for fifty?”
“Fefty,” soliloquised old John; “Ah thought yow wer’ a lot more ’n
thet, Robert.”
“Get away with you,” and Robert worked back to the merits of his son
Will.
“Is ’n any size?” inquired old John.
“Well, of course you know,” the other answered, “youngsters brought up
in the town don’t grow like they do in the country.”
“H’m! Ah-h,” reflected old John; “an’ have he a lahkin’ for farmin’?”
“A liking!” and Robert laughed a grim sort of laugh. “Th’ blinded
young scamp, he hasn’t got a liking for anything except billiards, and
football, and hanging round street corners at night.”
Old John shook his head gravely.
“Well, my attitude in the matter is this,” said Robert; “I was thinking
if I could only get him on to the land with someone, someone who would
work the devil out of him, and, at the same time; take an interest in
him, you know, that it would make a man of him.”
“H’m!... Ah-h!” mused old John.
Robert stroked his chin thoughtfully and waited.
“Ah-h!” old John murmured again.
Robert saw the futility of beating about the bush, and came right to
the point.
“Would _you_ take him for a while, John?” he asked. “He’d go to _your_
place, I believe, and of course I wouldn’t expect a wage for him, or
anything like that.”
“Well,” answered old John, slowly, “Ah only took one yoongster in thet
way in mah life, Robert; an’ Ah sed to the wife at th’ tahme thet Ah
would never take anoother.”
“Just so,” from Robert, disappointedly.
“But,” old John proceeded, “seein’ as it’s to do a good turn by _yow_,
Robert, Ah might change mah mind.”
“I wouldn’t forget it if you did, John,” Robert said, with a pleased
look.
“Well, then, Ah would lahke to have a talk along wi’ him,” the other
suggested, “a talk wi’ himself, yow un’erstand, an’ without ’n knowin’
as who Ah em.”
Robert entered into the idea with enthusiasm.
“An’ Ah could tell yow then, Robert, if wert wise to spend mooney on
’n.”
“Well, if you’ll come along and jump on a tram with me, now,” Robert
suggested eagerly, “we’ll go down to my office, and you can have a chat
with him there without him knowing who the deuce you are. But, mind
you, John” (the light of parental pride filling his eyes) “he’s as cute
as you make them, is Will.”
“Ah-h,” from Old John.
Then they rose and left the hotel together.
* * * * *
“You know,” Robert said, when they were seated in the tram, “the young
devil is full of brains if he likes to use them. ‘Look here, Staunton,’
his schoolmaster said to me one day, ‘don’t you take that boy away from
me yet; you leave him at school for another couple of years, and I’ll
make something of him for you. There’s nothing he can’t do if he only
makes up his mind to it.’”
“Ah-h,” answered old John, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, “then it
wer’ a pety, Robert, thet yow didn’t leave ’n at school.”
“Well, yes,” Robert mumbled, “it _was_, and I can see it now. No doubt,
no doubt!”
They alighted from the tram while it was in motion, Robert landed on
his feet, and old John on top of his head.
“God bless my soul, are you hurt?” Robert exclaimed, rushing to his
friend and standing him up.
Old John spat out large samples of the city soil, and brushed some more
from his swell suit, and tried to laugh, and said:
“Well, Ah dedn’t mean to come dahn thet way.”
“You might have been killed,” Robert said, with much concern.
“Well, Ah ain’t, Robert,” and old John laughed again, and pulled on his
hat, which had left him when he struck the street.
They proceeded along a footpath to Robert’s place of business.
“Well, now,” Robert said on nearing the entrance, “I’ll go in first,
John, and walk through to my own office, and you follow in a minute or
two. You’ll see Will at the desk in the auction room, along with young
Henry, the message boy. You can’t mistake Will, and he won’t know who
you——”
Old John motioned Robert off in a way that plainly indicated he
required no instructions.
Robert passed in.
“Was anyone looking for me when I was out, Will?” he called on reaching
the door of his office.
“Anyone looking for the boss?” Will said, in undertones to the message
boy.
The message boy shook his head in the negative.
“No one,” Will shouted, confidently, and resumed the useless occupation
of pasting “questionable” postcards into an album.
Presently old John, with an air of studied indifference, sauntered
clumsily in and began mooning round the auction room. He paused before
a rusty-looking oil-painting suspended from the wall with cob-web and
vermin, and gaped at it. The oil-painting was supposed to represent the
figure and features of a State Premier.
The message boy drew Will’s attention to the visitor.
[Illustration: IN THE SALE ROOM.]
Will looked up, and for a moment or two eyed the broad back and long
coat of old John.
“It’s lost its mother,” he said.
The message boy giggled; Will was a constant source of humour to the
message boy. But for Will the message boy’s existence would have been a
dull and uninteresting one in the office.
Old John, in admiration of the work of art, grunted: “H’m,” and “Ah-h!”
Will, on hearing the noise, looked up again, and, placing a thumb to
his nose, worked his fingers at old John.
The message boy ducked his head under the bench and gave way to mirth.
Old John fixed a pair of spectacles on his nose and proceeded to
examine the picture closely, like a woman judging fancy work at a
country show.
Will became interested. He reached to the floor, and, lifting a stray
onion that lay there, pelted it hard at old John’s head. The onion hit
the State Premier in the stomach and made a hole in him.
Old John jumped round.
“Nit yer bloomin’ larks, now!” Will said seizing the message boy by the
neck, “an’ garn outer this an’ do yer work. Chuckin’ onions about!”
The message boy snatched up a bunch of letters that required posting
and fled, leaving a train of giggles behind as he disappeared.
Old John, with a serious expression on his face, approached Will.
“Yow should’nt let ’n do thet,” he said, pointing to the punctured
Prime Minister. “Thet be a shame!”
“_Let_ him!” Will answered, in a voice of scorn, “I can’t stop him! But
if I was the boss here I would. I’d spear him without warnin’. But the
ol’ man, he’s far too easy, mister. ’Tween you and me he ain’t fit to
be over a hen coop.”
“Be yow a son o’ Mr. Staunton’s?” old John asked, tactfully.
“Well, so far as I know, I am, mister,” Will replied, “but I couldn’t
swear to it,” and he grinned.
Old John looked shocked.
Will laughed, and added:
“They say it’s a wise bloke that knows his own Pa—ain’t that so mister?”
Old John, half inclined to laugh, half inclined to administer a rebuke,
was lost for a reply.
But Will neither waited nor looked for one.
“_There’s_ a pair o’ good legs,” he said, shoving one of the postcards
into old John’s hand.
Old John glanced at the card, then burst into a loud “hoh! hoh!
hoh—hoh! hoh! hoh-h-h!” and dropped it on the floor.
“You wouldn’t guess in a year o’ Sundays where I got that from,
mister,” Will said, picking up the card.
Old John, with tears in his eyes, stared curiously at the son of his
friend Robert.
Will cast a cautious glance at his parent’s door.
“I got that one,” he whispered in confidence, “locked up in the old
man’s private drawer.”
“Hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh!—hoh-h-h!” and old John swung round and stamped
hard on the floor.
Hearing the roar of laughter, Robert stealthily opened his door and
looked out and smiled.
“Will’s amusing Dashwood, as I thought he would,” he murmured proudly
to himself, and quietly closed the door again.
But the turn the interview had taken was not what old John desired.
“What Ah’ve coome abaht, young man,” he said, approaching Will again,
“is th’ price o’ maize. How have it been sellin’ wi’ yow people?”
“_Maize?_” said Will, assuming an important business air. “_Dead_, sir;
a perfect drug. So’s wheat, and potatoes are a bally pest.... Why, are
you a farmer, mister?”
Old John saw his opportunity.
“Ah-h; Ah em, lad, an’ Ah’m proud on it.”
“You look it,” said Will, “you’re fat enough for one; but I’d have
taken you for something better than a cocky.”
“There be things a lot wus nor cockyin’, don’t you think?” replied old
John.
“Doing time would be, I suppose,” said Will, with a chuckle.
Under ordinary circumstances old John might have warmly resented the
slander. But he overlooked it.
“No, don’t you thenk, lad,” he said, “thet yow would be mooch better
orf setting behahnd a team o’ horses an’ a plough than cocked oop theer
on thet stool every day?”
“Who, _me_!” indignantly from Will. “_Dicken!_”
“Ah-h, yow lad.”
Will laughed.
“Why, that’s what the old man is always preaching,” he went on,
lighting a cigarette and blowing long thin streaks of smoke at old
John. “The old cove” (glancing again at the door) “has tried lots of
times to get me to go on the land. He wanted me to go with some old
coot up Fairfield way—old Dashwood. Do you know him at all, mister?”
Will waited for a reply.
Old John appeared to be in difficulties with himself.
“Ah-h,” he muttered at last, “Ah knows him a leetle.”
“A silly, religious old goat, ain’t he, says grace before pluggin’
into the pumpkin?” further enquired Will.
Old John’s eyes and mouth opened wide.
“He’s got a couple of jolly fine daughters, though, I believe,” Will
went on, rummaging himself for a match, “as good-looking as he’s ugly.”
Old John’s features started to work as if he was chewing something
hard, and his fists closed and opened automatically.
“It’s curious how a lot o’ these ugly old blokes,” Will went on,
growing philosophical, “have such good-looking daughters.”
Old John made an effort to speak, but couldn’t.
“How do you account for that, mister?”
A volcano seemed to be silently at work somewhere in the interior of
old John.
“I reckon,” said Will, “if I went to his place it wouldn’t be driving
teams I’d be at, I’d be driving those tarts around pretty slick. An’
I’d be huggin’ ’em an’ muggin’ ’em in the dairy. Oh, laws!” (Will
placed his hand over his heart and sighed.) “_What_ a time I’d have,
mister!”
Old John staggered back, and made a choking sound in his throat.
“I wouldn’t be there long,” laughed Will, “before old Johnny Dashwood
would be wanting to know what I meant by——”
“_Damn_ yow for a ill-bred city skunk!” old John burst out violently:
“Do you know who yow be atalkin’ to?” and he leaned over and glared
ferociously at Will.
Will, suddenly turning pale, deserted the stool and placed his back
against the wall.
“_Ah’m John Dashwood_, Ah em,” fairly shouted the other.
“Strike me curly, what am I up against!” said Will, and snatching up
his hat, darted through a side door into the street.
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
CHAPTER II.
It Was Will.
In the heat of temper old John turned on his heel, and abruptly left
the auction room without reporting his opinion or impressions of Will
to Robert Staunton.
Robert, in his office, sat waiting the result of the interview. He
waited till the clock pointed to lunch hour. Then, curious as to the
cause of the prolonged absence of his friend, he opened the door
noiselessly, and looked out. There was no sign of John or of the
“staff.” Robert lifted his voice and called: “_Will!_”
There was no answer.
He called “_Henry!_”
There was no Henry about, either.
“Will’s up to some of his games, I know,” Robert said to himself.
“Slipped Dashwood home for dinner, I bet. That’s where I’ll find them,”
and, turning to a basin that sat under a brass tap in a corner of his
little den, he proceeded to wash his hands.
“About five minutes to catch the tram,” he murmured, glancing at the
clock, when suddenly the door, as though a heavy horse troubled with
mange had rubbed against it, burst in and revealed old John, with
solemn, set countenance, standing like the statue of Captain Cook upon
the threshold.
Robert experienced a pleasant surprise at the unexpected appearance of
his country friend.
“Where the deuce have you been all the time?” he said, giving his hands
a final rub in the towel. “Why, I was just going to run off home to
hunt you up. I made sure Will had put you up to playing some joke on
me——”
Then, as he adjusted the towel in its place: “What do you think of
Will? How did you get on with him, John? Do you think you can make a
farmer of him?”
“_Robert!_” began old John, in tones of sorrow mingled with anger, “Ah
dersent want to saay nothink whatsoomever abaht yower son; let thet be
oonderstud clear atween us, oncet an’ for ever!”
Robert opened his eyes and stared as though he had been hit with
something.
“Ah dersent thenk,” old John continued, “thet he’s a credit to yow,
Robert, or thet yow, as his faither, has been a credit overmooch to
him.”
Robert was a man of quick temper, and there was a lot of conceit and
false city pride about him.
“_What!_” he said, staring at old John as though he couldn’t believe
what he had heard.
“Just what Ah sez, an’ nothink more, an’ nothink less,” replied the
other, with firmness.
Robert was satisfied he had heard correctly.
“To _h—l_ with you,” he shouted, upsetting his office stool by the
excited motion he made with his hands, the noise of which made a
fitting accompaniment to his outburst of temper. “Would you insult me
and my son—an’—an’—an’ in my own _office_? It’s like your d—— cheek!
And I won’t stand it, not from _you_ Dashwood, nor from _anyone_! I
wouldn’t stand it from the King of England! By heavens I wouldn’t;
and I’m an Englishman, as good an Englishman as was ever _born_!” He
thumped the table hard with his soft, flabby fist. Then, puffing and
blustering like a whale, glared at old John.
“Ah insults _no one_!” old John roared back, squaring his shoulders
and standing his ground. “Do you hear _thet_?” (a dramatic pause). “Ah
insults _no one_, Robert Staunton! But what Ah thenks Ah means to say,
and——”
“You _won’t_!” Robert interrupted furiously. “You _won’t_! By heavens
you won’t; not in _my_ office!”
“Ah _will_” yelled old John, “an’ Ah will say it here, an’——”
“You d— well _won’t_, I say,” howled Robert, shoving his face
close into John’s. “If you utter one more word you’ll go out of
here—by—by—by——”
In his fury the right word failed him. “_Dashwood!_” he bellowed in
a higher key, “don’t you compel me to strike you, or by my soul look
here!” He seized a chair with both hands and waved it over old John’s
head. At the same moment Will, who meanwhile had returned to his desk,
overhearing the noise, stealthily approached the open door of his
parent’s private office, and stood, a silent spectator of the quarrel.
“Don’t yow do anythink you’ll be sorry for, Robert Staunton!” roared
old John, without flinching from the uplifted chair.
“Get out of here, then,” roared the other.
“When Ah’m ready!” said old John.
“Well, get ready, set, go!” came suddenly from Will, and with a violent
pull of old John’s coat-tails he dragged him to the broad of his back
and made a great noise with him on the floor.
Old John was never more surprised in his life than when he found
himself on the floor. With the howls of an enraged animal he struggled
to his feet and pursued Will round the auction room. For a moment or
two it was all joy to Will. He gloried in the exhilarating sport of
evading capture, and chuckled as he dodged in and out and round about
bags and bales and miscellaneous cargo.
“Scotch him, Spider,” He shouted to the message boy, who chanced to
return to his post just in time to share in the excitement. “Scotch
him!”
[Illustration: A BREACH OF FRIENDSHIP.]
The message boy seemed to understand well enough what Will required
of him, but, like a growing pup that experiences for the first time
a desire to take part in the frolics of older dogs, he hesitated and
frisked nervously about in the one spot whenever old John shuffled past
him. Once he made a half-hearted attempt to seize hold of old John, but
courage seemed to fail him.
“Scotch him, darn it, Spider!” Will cried again, then slipped on a
banana peel, and sprawled on the floor.
“Yow yoong dug!” cried old John, “Ah’ve got yer now!” and with open
hands bent down to scoop him up.
“Yer fritent scowser, Spider!” Will yelled. “Scotch him!”
The messenger danced about like a chained monkey for a second or two,
then finally rushed forward and shoved old John hard in the rear while
he was in the act of stooping. Instead of securing his assailant old
John fell head first over him, and made more noise than the dropping
of several hundredweights of iron dumb-bells upon the boards. Will was
relieved; and, struggling to his feet, he hopped away on one leg, and
disappeared. The message boy had dived out in advance of him.
Old John rose and glared all about, then brushed himself with his
hands. He groaned several times, then approached Robert’s office door
again.
“What Ah coomed here to say te yow, Robert Staunton, wer’ this,” he
said, doggedly. “If you dersent keep a taht rein on thet there son o’
yow’n, he’ll get ’n into trouble one o’ these days! Gud day!”
Then, turning away, he went into the street, and made for his hotel.
* * * * *
Will, delighted with the turn things had taken, frisked into his
father’s office to glean further information about the quarrel.
“Did you ever in your life hear such infernal impudence?” puffed the
parent, his passion not one bit abated, “for a d— pumpkin man like that
to come here and insult me in my own office!”
“I’m blest if I could make out what the deuce had gone wrong when I
heard yer both slingin’ off,” said Will, cheerfully, and added: “He
wanted to deal it out to you, did he, dad?”
“He wouldn’t deal much to me, I’ll warrant!” and the burly produce man
walked savagely round his dingy little den.
“I made sure yer was goin’ to spread him out with th’ furniture,” Will
ventured, with a grin.
But other thoughts began to occupy the mind of the parent.
“What did _you_ say to him?” he demanded, turning suddenly upon Will,
and fixing him with angry eyes. “Did you say anything to offend
Dashwood?”
“_Me?_” and Will struck a surprised attitude. “Offend Mister Dashwood?
Why, I didn’t know he _was_ Mister Dashwood!”
“That’s not answering the question I asked you! Did you say anything,
or do anything to him at all?” and the parent lifted his voice in a way
that made Will start.
“Oh, I spoke to him, of course, when he spoke to me,” Will answered
slyly.
“What th’ devil was it you said to him, then?” demanded the parent.
“What was it I said to him?” Will repeated, sparring for time.
“Yes!” and the parent clenched his fists.
“Oh, he just asked me how produce was going, and——”
“And what?”
“Well, he said something er—about—er——”
“About what?” loudly from the parent.
“Er—about _farming_.”
“What about farming?”
“Well, I think” (hesitating) “that he asked me if I’d care to go on a
farm!”
Robert felt he was on the right track for a solution of the trouble,
and yelled at the top of his voice:
“And what th’ devil did you say in answer to that; out with it!”
“Oh, I said it would be just the glassy marble—the sort of thing
I’d like to be at, that is, as near as I can remember.” Will was a
brilliant liar.
Robert was baffled. He felt convinced of his son’s innocence, and old
John’s attitude was surrounded with deeper mystery than before.
“An’ that was all he said to you?” he asked, in a calm mood.
“He went away then,” said Will, committing more perjury, “and I never
saw him any more till I see you going to wooden him with the furniture.”
“Curious!” reflected the parent, “d— curious!” and, seating himself in
his chair, sat thinking the matter over.
Will lost no time getting out of the office. It was too warm an
atmosphere for Will’s frame of mind just then.
“The boss is in a devil of a pelt,” he informed the message boy, whom
he encountered on his way in with a letter that had arrived for the
“firm.” “Be careful what y’ say, Spider, if he asks anything, or he’ll
sack y’ sure as yer livin’!”
If there was one thing in this world that the message boy dreaded
more than another it was the thoughts of losing his five shillings a
week. And, whenever the bare possibility of such a disaster was even
suggested to Henry, painful visions of the distraction and penury
his mother would be reduced to in consequence rose up before him and
disturbed his peace of mind.
“Who’s that from?” his employer growled, as the boy nervously placed
the letter before him on the table.
He ventured no reply, but commenced a hasty retreat.
“Henry, come here!” and Robert called him back.
Henry’s heart went cold, and he returned, looking pale as death, and
trembling like a captured hare.
“H’m!” mumbled Robert, as he finished reading the letter. Then, putting
the document aside and turning to the boy:
“Oh, I wanted to ask you, Henry, if by any chance you happened to say
anything to Mr. Dashwood when he was in this morning that annoyed him,
though I don’t think you did, did you?”
Henry went to pieces.
“It wasn’t me, sir!” he blubbered, “it—it was _Will_!” then he opened
his mouth and bawled as though he were being tortured with hot coals
and molten lead.
Robert sprang from his chair.
“It was Will, was it?” he repeated.
“Y-y-yes!” howled Henry.
“Now, don’t be afraid, I’m not going to say anything to you, Henry;
just be quiet and tell me what you know about it.”
“He—he” (sob) “he” (another sob) “he—he” (several sobs) “threw—threw”
(some more sobs) “a onion at—at—him.”
“_Who?_ At Mr. Dashwood? _Will_ did?” Robert gasped. “By heavens!”
“Y-y-yes, s’!” moaned Henry.
“_That’s_ it, is it! Th’ d— young liar!” The outraged parent bit his
lip. “I see it all now! Th’ confounded young blackguard!”
Then addressing Henry again:
“Just tell Will to come here; I want to see him.”
But Will, who had been listening at the door, made off, and, on
reaching the street, turned and shook his fist threateningly at the
message boy.
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
CHAPTER III.
The Family Visit the Theatre.
In the evening the family met together round the hotel tea-table. Peter
and Tilly supplied the greater part of the conversation. All the fresh
incidents and impressions they had to relate would alone have filled a
book of fair dimensions. Old John himself was silent, and seemed in a
melancholy mood. Mrs. Dashwood shared his reflective spirits, and sat
as one over whom a cloud of gloom was resting heavily. At intervals,
when appealed to to settle some point of difference, old John would
grunt “h’m” or “hoh!”
“Any letter from William to-day?” James, who harboured a suspicion that
something had gone wrong away back at the farm, enquired of his parent.
“Noh, noh; not to-day, lad, not to-day,” was the reply. And, leaning
back in his chair old John seemed to become deeply absorbed in the
senseless chatter, and the bowing and pawing of the bare-necked,
white-fronted group of superior people who occupied the adjoining
table. But in reality he neither heard nor saw one of them.
“How did you get on with Mr. Staunton, father; did you see him?” Peter
asked abruptly.
Mrs. Dashwood, who was already in her husband’s confidence as regards
the day’s doings, turned her eyes sympathetically upon old John.
Peter repeated the question, and the absent-minded parent came to his
senses with a start.
“Ah-h! oh! Ah-h yes; I seed him, lad!” he answered, clumsily striving
to treat the question in his most natural way.
“Father and Mr. Staunton had a good fly round together, I’ll be bound,”
Tilly ventured, playfully, and added, with a deep sigh: “Oh, I’d just
love to be a man in a big city!”
Peter drained a glass of ginger-beer, and, setting the glass down,
chuckled:
“Yes; you’d make such a splendid man, you would, Til. Ha! ha! Remember
when you put on James’s trousers?”
Tilly scowled at her brother, and then choked back a giggle.
“Sh!” Polly said, nudging Peter, “don’t let people hear you, you silly!”
“Well, she might make a good enough man,” Maria growled, “for she ain’t
such a great success at what she is, or someone would be wanting her
before this.”
“Well I won’t be afraid to refuse the first one that _does_ come along
lest I should never get another, Maria!” Tilly fired back, with blood
in her cheeks.
Just here a waiter, plying for custom, broke in on them.
“No more for me,” old John said, and the rest of the family nodded
their heads in the negative. The waiter bowed like a willow stick, and
fluttered off on his rounds.
“Are we going to th’ play to-night, father?” Peter asked, folding his
serviette anyhow.
Old John shook his head dismally and mumbled: “Ah-h dern’t know, lad!”
and Tilly said she “guessed father would be going out somewhere with
Mr. Staunton.”
Old John stared pathetically at his daughter.
“I think father has seen all he will ever want to see of Mr. Staunton,”
Mrs. Dashwood remarked, meaningly.
The family began to “smell a rat,” and looked hard and wonderingly at
their downcast parent.
“Ah! H’m!” murmured old John, and rising, once more led the way from
the noisy, busy dining-room.
They all ascended in the lift together, and, arriving at No. 2
floor, collected in a circle at one end of the luxuriantly furnished
sitting-room. Then by degrees, and in disjointed fragments, full
particulars of the episode in which Will Staunton played such an
interesting part were passed from one to the other, and feelingly
discussed.
“And do you mean to say the old scoundrel was going to hit you with a
chair, father?” James asked, with an angry frown on his face.
“Well, Ah thenk he would ’a’ done, lad!” old John answered quietly.
“And fancy that Willie Staunton pulling father down on the floor!”
Tilly flared. “I could wring his neck!”
Polly summed the Staunton family up as “a bad lot,” and reckoned they
weren’t worth talking about.
“Did you say as someone wer’ _shot_, my dear?” Granny enquired of
Polly. But no one was in the humour to go into details in the interests
of Granny.
“By Xmas! I wish I’d been there!” Peter broke out, with fight in his
eye. “I’d have settled mister Bill Staunton.”
“It mighn’t be too late yet,” James remarked, with a quiet,
no-confidence smile at his brother.
“By Xmas I would!” Peter said louder.
“It would be just as effective to-morrow,” James drawled advisedly.
“No mistake I would!” Peter repeated.
“We might come across him before we leave town,” James suggested
knavishly.
“Who th’ deuce is Bill Staunton, I’d like to know!” Peter stormed,
unmindful of James.
James winked at Tilly.
“Well, Peter,” Tilly said, “really, you just look as if you _would_ hit
somebody.”
“Oh, well,” Maria growled, as she danced the baby up and down, “I’m
glad it’s happened for my part; we won’t have to be bothered calling
on them now, and they never did like to see anyone come with a baby to
their place, anyway!”
A porter, with his hair beautifully arranged for the evening, and a
silver tray in his hand, entered the sitting-room and stared about from
guest to guest.
“Mr. Dashwood?” he said, addressing a sour, grizzled-featured,
bald-headed old swell who sat by himself, scowling on all around him.
The bald-headed one shook his head. Our friends all turned their faces
towards the porter. “Ah-h, here,” cried old John, catching his eye.
And those hotel porters _have_ eyes! The reputation enjoyed by the
Australian aboriginal for seeing things early is a fraud in comparison
to the quickness of _their_ vision.
Gliding lightly and gracefully across the crowded room, the porter
placed a card in old John’s hand.
“The gentleman is waiting to see you down stairs, sir,” he said; “most
important.”
Old John stared at the card: Mrs. Dashwood stared at it; the whole
family crowded round and stared at it.
“Mr. Robert Staunton, ah-h,” murmured old John.
The family looked at each other.
“Wants to see you?” said Peter.
“Perhaps Will is with him,” James remarked; looking meaningly at Peter.
“Don’t you go, father; don’t you,” Polly and Tilly advised earnestly,
and Mrs. Dashwood murmured: “Don’t mind him.”
“What answer, sir?” from the porter, who was becoming restless.
“Well, _noh_!” blustered old John; “Ah won’t see him.”
“Tell him you’re not in, sir?” suggested the porter, from force of
habit.
“But Ah _em_ in,” cried old John. “Yow tell him Ah dersent want to have
ennerthin’ more to do with th’ lahkes o’ him.”
The porter smiled. “Yessir,” he said, and glided off again.
“Did yer ever hear th’ lahkes o’ thet!” said old John, tearing the card
to pieces. “Noh! Ah’m done wi’ Robert Staunton. Ah’m done wi’ him.”
For quite a while the family sat in silence.
“Have you been to the theatre to hear ‘In Australia’ yet, Mr.
Hall-Smith?” a female voice rang out across the room.
“Bai Jove! Ai reallay am ashamed Ai hev not, Miss Brown,” came the
answer, “but Ai’m told it’s awfullay delightful.”
“Terribly funnay,” from a second female. “We were there the naight His
Excellency attended, and we literally screamed the whole taime.”
Our friends from the country looked enquiringly into each other’s faces.
“That’s where we should go to-night,” Peter said, and Polly and Tilly
quickly approved of his suggestion.
Mrs. Dashwood looked kindly at old John, and thought it would do him a
world of good to go out for an hour or two and forget unpleasant things.
Old John brooded on in silence a while longer; then, as though his
senses had suddenly returned, said with a glow of enthusiasm:
“Ah-h, why not; the whole lot on us. You too, Maria.”
Polly and Tilly cast an anxious glance towards Maria, with a hope
in their wildly-beating hearts that their married sister, with the
squawking encumbrance, would elect to remain behind and take care of
the hotel. But to their chagrin Maria was delighted with the idea.
She hadn’t seen a play “since Joe Miller’s niggers performed in the
goods-shed at Chatswood,” but they would have to wait until she “put
another dress on the baby.” She went off and put another dress on the
baby; also an extra pink ribbon or two on herself. And when all were
ready Maria was curious to know if the baby would understand anything
of the play. Polly nudged Tilly, and Tilly nudged Polly; then they all
hurried down the stairs, dragging each other after them.
[Illustration: AT THE THEATRE.]
* * * * *
The Company’s manager, the courteous “Goody,” smiled a droll sort of
smile as he turned to watch the last of old John’s numerous party trail
in at the door of the theatre.
They were late. The play was in full swing when they entered, and
the trouble they had to discover seats for themselves exasperated a
section of the audience. City people take their “theatres” as they take
themselves, seriously. They called upon the late comers to “sit down”
before they could see where to sit, or what to sit on.
“Don’t yow be in a hurry,” old John called back to them. “We got plenty
to sit on, but where to put it be th’ trouble.” This caused a laugh,
which brought a number of people at distant parts of the house to their
feet. They seemed to think the play had shifted venue and that they
were missing some of it. Others then followed their stupid example till
the whole audience, except those near by, were staring in the direction
of our country friends.
“Why didn’t yer bring th’ plough with yer?” enquired a thin voice from
a dark corner of the pit, and a burst of merriment rang out in that
quarter. Finally, however, our friends all sank down out of sight. Then
Granny, thinking she was at home on the farm, started to make more
trouble. At the top of her wheezy voice she desired to know if Mrs.
Dashwood was “quite comfortable,” and if she was “sitting in a draught.”
“Oh, dry up!” came from the seat behind; and Polly and Tilly took
Granny in hand to silence her. But they were up against a difficult
proposition.
“Have yow th’ little yun wrapped well up, my dear?” she enquired
of Maria. Then Maria began a conversation with her on the amiable
characteristics of the infant.
“Order! Order!” commanded a number of angry people, and one was heard
to growl: “They’ve come to the wrong shop; it’s at Dunwich they ought
to be!”
Tilly pinched Granny hard to suppress her, but only provoked her to
loud remonstrance. She rebelled in a sharp, squeaky voice and addressed
her grand-daughter in an incoherent sort of way.
“Put them out!” came from away back in the pit, while a voice that
seemed affected by a bad cold cried; “Sit on their chest!”
“Oh, ain’t it awful!” Tilly murmured to Polly, and old John at last
shook Granny hard, and warned her to be silent, by holding up his big
finger and shaking it close to her nose.
Then Granny settled down, and the family fixed its eyes on the play.
A bush scene was before them. An old selector in his shirt sleeves, and
with large patches on his pants, was wildly haranguing his daughter
into marrying the fellow for whom she had no love.
“You’re mad—mad as a March hare,” he exclaimed. “Could you compare the
two men, could you? Is there any comparison between them?”
“No, there is not, father,” the girl answered, looking very love-sick
and pretty, “Jim is poor, and hard-working and good-looking and honest,
and—and—he _loves_ me.”
“Well, and what is th’ _hother_?” yelled the boisterous match-making
parent.
“Oh, well, he’s an Inspector of Police, father, that is all.”
The old selector walked at racing-pace up and down the boards for
several turns and threw his sledge-hammer fists wildly about before he
spoke again.
“That is all, eh?” he yelled. “Where’s his big screw, and his
hinfluence in th’ country, eh? Ain’t he got them?” He walked up and
down again, and, when he got tired, paused before the girl, and
bellowed: “Damnation to it! are yer goin’ to have him—yes or _no_?”
“_No_, a thousand times no, father!”
“Then _damn_ yer! yer’ll have to!” and off he went again in a canter.
Just here the person involved, the uniformed Inspector himself, entered
in a most unexpected sort of way.
“God bless me, Inspector,” said the artful old selector, suddenly
becoming as cheerful-looking as a bridal party, “it’s you, is it? Why,
we was just talkin’ about you and sayin’ how long it is since you were
here,” and he nearly wrung the official’s arms out.
At this period of the performance Peter thought “it up to him” to have
a laugh. And a man sitting in front of him who received the full blast
of the mirth in his right ear looked round and said: “Steady, old man!”
“Well, I hope I am not intruding,” spoke the brilliant Inspector, with
one eye on the girl, “but an important case which I have in hand, in
this locality brings me here at this late hour.” Here he gazed at the
audience and sighed: “Ah, what a divine creature! If she will only be
mine!” Then he faced the old selector’s daughter, and bowed profusely
to her, and addressed her as “Kate,” and assured her of the pleasure it
gave him to find her looking so cheerful and well. “Kate” bowed coldly
and stiffly to him, and plunged a needle into a scrap of calico she
was supposed to be sewing.
“A case in this district, eh, Inspector?” the old selector said,
fussing round.
“Yes. Some rascals have been slaughtering Grey’s cattle for him, and
doing it pretty clumsily, too, I can tell you.”
“Yer don’t tell me,” gasped the old selector.
“Quite true, confound them! We came across the head of one scratched
out of the ground by the dingoes, and the tail of another in an old
fire.”
The old selector thought he saw some humour in it, and said:
“Heads you win and tails they lose, eh, Inspector, ha! ha! ha!”
“Well, win or lose, I’m making a house to house investigation and
asking them all to turn out what hides they’ve got about their places.”
“Well, I’ll very soon show yer mine,” said the old selector, and off he
bolted. At the door he paused and observed to the audience: “I’ll give
them plenty of time ter themselves. That’s all he’s after.”
Then, while the audience breathed heavily, the Inspector addressed
himself affectionately to the daughter.
“I hope she won’t have him!” Tilly murmured excitedly into Polly’s
ear, and at the same moment something went wrong with Maria’s baby. It
squealed without giving any warning of its intention, and Maria shook
it, and “cooed” and crooned to it. “Sit on it!” cried a disagreeable
individual. “Chuck it out!” another, with no sympathy for children,
advised. Maria scowled all round like a lioness at bay, and said: “I’d
like to see any of you try it!” A great number of silly people laughed,
and Mrs. Dashwood pulled at Maria and told her to take no notice, which
Maria did forthwith.
“Why this silence, why are you so cold to me, Kate? Have you not one
little word of love for me? Ah-h!” and the Inspector went through a
series of tragic antics peculiar to people who love to excess. But
it was no use. All the response he could extract from the girl was a
long, far away sigh. The Inspector tugged at his sleeves and displayed
symptoms of desperation.
“Then you refuse my love?” he yelled in a violent outburst.
Kate answered with a faint bow.
“Ah-h-h! Then you love another?”
“Yes, she loves another!” came unexpectedly from the hero of the play,
who strolled in and calmly confronted the Inspector. “And what have you
to say to him?”
The official one was knocked all of a heap for a second or two.
“Oh, Jim!” gasped the girl, clutching at space.
“Scoundrel!” yelled the disappointed Inspector, “who admitted you here?”
Jim drew out and delivered the police his best punch, and knocked him
longways across the sofa. Then, while the audience cheered and hurrayed
and laughed, Jim took Kate in his big, hairy arms and hugged her. He
enjoyed the hugging process so much, and kept to it so long, that the
prostrate Inspector was given time to regain consciousness and to
calmly consider what was best for him to do. He considered the best
thing to do was to draw his revolver. And, notwithstanding that Peter
called lustily to him to “look out,” Jim neglected to turn his head
until requested in a triumphant voice by the Inspector to “leave this
house or die the death of a villain!” When he did turn he found himself
looking down the barrel of the regulation revolver.
The audience clutched each other for support. Polly and Tilly closed
their eyes. “Oh, my God!” Maria said, “he’s going to shoot!”
Then the awful suspense was broken by Jim calmly spitting into the
barrel, and defying the revolver to go off. A loud yell of delight rang
out, and Jim spat into the barrel again. Then down went the curtain.
“Ah-h, he’s a proper Hostralian, that cove!” old John observed, as he
wiped the excitement from his brow with a handkerchief.
Then the light was turned full on, and a murmur of voices filled the
house as the audience began to converse freely with itself.
In the babel of tongues about our friends a female voice was heard to
say, in a grievous way:
“Fancy bringing a baby in arms to a theatre! How ridiculous!” Maria
turned her head quickly and located the owner of that voice.
The proprietor of it was a lady with a long, lean neck, and a bare,
bony chest. She looked through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that were
secured to some part of her by a magnificent chain, and she sat up very
straight and dignified behind a fan that would have made a peacock weep
with envy.
“If you had one like it,” Maria said, straight at her, “you’d bring it,
too; but I don’t suppose you ever had one, or ever will,” and concluded
by making an ugly face.
The lady with the long, bare neck screened her blushing face behind the
gorgeous fan, and whispered things into the ear of a male companion.
Tilly and Polly both tugged at Maria, and threatened to leave and
return to the hotel if she “went on like that any more.” Maria growled
audibly to herself and hugged the precious infant closer to her bosom.
“Chocolates here! One shilling a box!” cried a youthful vendor of
sweets, pushing his way between the rows of seats.
[Illustration: MARIA’S BABY.]
“Got a shilling, father?” Peter whispered to his parent.
“Ah-h!” answered old John, pushing his fist into his pocket.
Peter beckoned the youth along, and plunged into the chocolates. Old
John paid for them with a half sovereign.
“She’s enjoyin’ herself, mister,” the chocolate boy said, with a grin
at Granny. Old John glanced quickly at the aged one and discovered she
was fast asleep.
The boy laughed sociably.
“Wake up, moother!” said old John, giving Granny a shake; “it’s going
to begin agen now!”
Granny declined to wake up.
“Don’t you disturb her, mister,” the boy said advisedly; “she won’t
miss anythink!”
“Yes; leave her, John,” Mrs. Dashwood urged; “she’ll be all right!”
John left her, and the boy moved off without leaving any change.
Then the curtain rose again, and showed to the world some more of the
Australian bush. It was a wild, grand sort of scene. A mountain pass
in all its ruggedness stood within several feet of the audience. Wild
birds were calling and whistling and laughing among the mountains. A
police constable and two black-trackers were pitching a camp at the
mouth of the mountain pass. All their baggage and accoutrements lay
about. The audience murmured in admiration.
“It’s too bad to let her miss all on it,” old John said, and made
another attempt to wake Granny. But the effort was futile.
One of the black-trackers stared up into the foliage above his head,
and said: “Moomoomby.” His brother tracker shook his woolly head,
and contradicted him: “Baal, moomoomby,” he jabbered. “That pfellow
petebroo.” Then they argued the point until the constable tossed an
empty billy-can at their feet and hollered:
“Shut ye’s jabbering jaw and go and fill that at the creek. Hurry
up, or befure we have the tea ready the Inspector will be here, and
there’ll be th’ divil to pay.”
“You been fetch it, Charlie,” the first tracker grumbled, shunting the
job on to his brother. “I been bring it water alonga dinner-time.”
Charlie also demurred.
“Oh, by cripes,” he growled, “I been bring it water last night two
times twice.”
The audience laughed at the simple humour of its countrymen.
“Go arn wid y’; the two of ye,” thundered the constable. “Y’ pair o’
lazy divils. All ye’re good fer is stuffin’ ye’re skin, and shleepin’.
And look here, when I think of ud: Let ye’s keep me awaake to-night the
way ye’s did larst night wid ye’re snorin’ like pigs, and be my soul
I’ll put a hot fire-stick up ye’re noshtrils!”
Howls of delight from every part of the house.
“You been do that,” said Charlie; “we couldn’t smell it no more to make
it a livin’ for our missis, and we get it compersation then from it
Labour Party.” (Yells of laughter from the “fat” section of the house.)
“Oh, my word, yes,” Norman said, in confirmation, “we get it plenty
pfellow compersation then all right for not bein’ able to smell it
track no more,” and both niggers laughed and grimaced like children.
“Shmell a thrack!” snarled the constable, “the only thrack ever I knew
ye’s to shmell wer’ th’ thrack of a damper, or a lump o’ beef. Go arn
wid ye’s and fetch the water, or I’ll kick ye’re ribs in!” and he aimed
a place kick with his number ten at Charlie, which went wide of the
mark. (More joy for the audience, during which Peter wriggled in a sort
of fit across the knees of his parent and kicked Granny back into the
land of the living again for several seconds.) Charlie started off,
billy in hand, and, hanging over the edge of the stage while Norman
held him by the two legs, dipped some water out of the creek.
“Now, gather plenty o’ wood fer th’ night!” ordered the constable, “so
as we won’t be scratchin’ about in th’ dark forrit, and be pickin’ up
shnakes.”
“By cripes!” gasped Charlie, suddenly becoming reminiscent, “I been
pick it up two big pfellow snakes one night.”
“Ye’s did, yer black divil! And what did ye’s do?”
“By cripes, I been-jump it nearly into th’ plurry moon,” answered
Charlie. And the laugh he raised would have emptied a hospital.
“Well, be th’ saints above,” said the constable, “I wish ye’d pick one
up now!”
Charlie proceeded cautiously to collect wood. As he bent down Norman
threw a stick, which fell at his feet. Charlie, with snakes on his
mind, took fright. He bounded into the air like a piece of whalebone,
then stared about suspiciously. The audience entered into the joke
with enthusiasm. Satisfied nothing had attacked him Charlie continued
to scrape up more wood. As he stooped again a snake of tremendous
dimensions gradually lowered its length from the limbs above till its
large head, with wide, open mouth, was within a foot of Charlie’s
woolly head. (The audience started to get excited, while Norman
fled at sight of the reptile and took refuge behind the constable.)
Charlie filled his arms with sticks, then straightened up. His head
bumped into the dangling boa-constrictor. He looked up quickly to see
what was there. He saw what was there, and dropped his bundle to the
accompaniment of an unearthly yell. The snake concluded the time was
ripe to commence operations. It commenced by falling in a number of
long, heavy coils upon Charlie, and winding itself around him. Talk
about excitement! A wild, desperate struggle started off, and rolled
itself several times across the stage. The audience began to kneel on
each other’s shoulders.
“Don’t y’ think we had better get out of here, father?” Peter cried,
with fright and frenzy in his rolling eyes. Old John didn’t hear him.
The struggle for life on the one hand, and for a meal on the other,
continued to roll across the stage. The constable seized a rifle, and,
pointing it in the direction of the danger, sat prepared to defend
himself. The snake coils slackened and Charlie slipped out into the
fresh air. He lay full length on his stomach, exhausted. The snake
struck a similar attitude. Their heads were near each other’s. They
glared at each other. Charlie groaned. The snake opened its mouth.
Charlie gazed far away into the recesses of its lengthy interior. He
groaned more. (“Oh, we’d all better go; it’s going to swallow him!”
came apprehensively from Maria). Something seemed to go wrong with the
reptile internally. It suddenly developed several bulging compartments
along its stomach. It was all stomach. It opened its mouth wider—still
wider. It struggled, strained, wriggled and contorted; then a kangaroo
rat jumped out of him, and raced for dear life across the stage.
(Yells of surprise from the house.) Then “bang!” went the constable’s
rifle and the rat fell just as it was in the act of jumping upon the
orchestra. Such howls and yells and jeers as followed were never heard
in any play house before. And before the people could calm themselves
the snake let loose two half-bald old ’possums upon the evening. “Bang!
bang!” from the constable’s rifle, and both ’possums lay shivering on
their backs.
“Well, damme!” said John Hop (popping more cartridges into the
magazine) “if this ain’t th’ besht bit of spoort I’ve had since I jined
the foorce!”
Then the voice of Charlie was heard to call out in feeble pleading
tones:
“Oh, why you not been shoot it th’ plurry snake!”
“I wud,” cried the constable, “but how do I know there isn’t a mahn in
him, and twud be manslaughter!”
But Mrs. Dashwood had reached the limit. She could stand no more of
that play.
“I’m going!” she said, rising; “I’m going. Some one will be shot, and
it might be one of us!”
Maria, in the interests of her offspring, agreed with her mother.
“Just as yer like,” old John said, and off they all went.
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
CHAPTER IV.
The Sheriff’s Faithful Man.
After breakfast, old John, as he left the hotel alone, stood on the
large stone steps for a moment or two, gazing in wonder at the volume
of traffic that seemed to be ever and ever increasing. A well-fed,
greasy, sleeky individual, accompanied by a lean, pallid person in
a small straw hat and a large paper collar, and one who would have
had difficulty in passing for anything other than what he was, an
attorney’s overworked and underpaid office-hack, hung about the
pavement, eyeing him closely.
“Are you sure he’s the man?” the well-fed one murmured _sotto voce_, as
he pulled some papers from his pocket, and examined them.
“Sure? Absolutely,” replied the clerk. “I saw him as he left the boat
yesterday. But don’t let him bluff you. Our principals say he is as
cunning as a fox.”
Old John descended slowly, and, as he reached the pavement, the greasy,
sleeky man, who, of course, was none other than the boss bailiff of the
State, smiled an oily smile, which was the most valuable part of his
stock-in-trade, and accosting him, said:
“Oh—er—Mister Brownloe, half a moment, please.”
Old John paused and stared at them both.
“You’ll excuse me, won’t you?” and the bailiff proceeded to grapple
with a number of documents, which seemed to evade the touch of his fat
fingers.
“Ah’ll excuse yow,” answered old John, with a broad smile, “but Ah
ain’t Mister Brownloe.”
The bailiff laughed affably.
“Oh, we understand each other, Mister Brownloe,” he said. “It takes
an old dog for a hard road, eh, Mister Brownloe?” and he laughed some
more. “But if you won’t mind stepping round the corner for a moment
where it will be more private, we——”
“Dang you!” blurted old John indignantly. “What do I want to go round
the corner with yow fer? Who be yow, eh?”
“Well, really,” and the bailiff laughed pleasantly, “you’re about
the hardest case I’ve met, Mister Brownloe, and I’ve met some queer
ones—thousands of them. You know well enough” (producing a sealed
document) “that I’ve got a warrant of _Ca. Re._ against you! Really I
don’t know how you can take it so calmly,” and another pleasant ripple
of official mirth came from him.
“A _w-what_!” cried old John.
“Well, you _are_ a caution,” pursued the hypocritical bum. “I’ll just
read it to you:
‘_To James Ballantyne, my Chief Bailiff, greeting:—By virtue of a
writ of Capias ad Respondurdum to me directed, I command you that you
take Robert Brox Brownloe if he be found in my bailiwick, and him
safely keep until he shall have satisfied the sum of £850, which sum
was ordered to be paid by the said Robert Brox Brownloe to William
Smith, plaintiff in this suit, together with office fees, legal and
incidental expenses, besides interest at the rate of £8 per centum
per annum. Hereof fail not. William Thomas, Sheriff._’”
“What have all thet rigermarole got to do wi’ me?” exclaimed old John.
“Ah ain’t Brownloe, or ennerone else; Ah’m John Dashwood. And look yow
here, and just listen to me: Ah’ve heerd o’ your sort often enoof, so
just yow get on abaht your business and doan’t interfere wi’ me else
Ah’ll call a perleeceman and give the two on yow in charge.”
The bailiff rubbed his hands, and laughed in a most friendly fashion.
“Well, if you ain’t just the coolest fellow that ever I have come
across in all my experience, Mr. Brownloe, and I can’t help but admire
you. It’s a pleasure to meet a man like you. But, really, you know, and
you mustn’t blame me or my friend Mr. Tomkins, here. I’ll make it as
pleasant as I can for you, but you must consider yourself my prisoner
until the sum is paid, together with the office fees.” He repeated
“office fees” several times, and each time smiled most seductively,
for that was where he himself came in. Then he placed his hand on old
John’s shoulder to administer the legal official “touch,” without
which, according to George the Fourth or someone of ancient descent,
the “arrest” would not be good business.
Old John side-stepped and, striking a Jack Johnson attitude, used
threatening language.
“Now really,” and the bailiff laughed once more, “you _are_ a gallant
old man, Mr. Brownloe, but I wouldn’t fight with you for a good deal,
no, not me! Many a fellow you’ve knocked over, I know! But we musn’t
waste too much time, for I’ve got to be back at the court at 11.30, and
here is a copy of the summons, and a copy of the judge’s order.” He
calmly offered the documents to old John.
Old John punched a hole in the judge’s order and danced on the summons;
then invited his interviewers to stand up and be made chopping blocks
of.
The affable bum deemed it judicious to enter into further particulars.
“Like a good fellow,” he said, in his best smoodging voice, “just
listen to me, just listen to me for one minute, will you, Mister
Brownloe?
“I’m the sheriff’s chief officer” (he never encouraged the use of
the term “bailiff” at all). “This gentleman”—turning to the sweated
hack—“represents Messrs. Jones and Robertson, Town Agents for the
Plaintiff’s Solicitor. Now, like the sensible man that I’m sure you
must be, if you will only think the matter over one minute and just
come along and see the sheriff it will save a lot of trouble. If you
refuse, you know, I must only call a policeman, and oh! really, Mr.
Brownloe, I wouldn’t like to cause a scene here, more for your sake
than for my own.” And, gathering up the scattered documents, he tried
old John with them once more.
Old John took them in his hand and savagely tore them into many pieces.
A look of horror filled the eyes of the astonished bum. He saw
sacrilege and contempt of court written all over the scraps that were
fluttering innocently away, and making off down the street.
“Oh, you bad old man!” he gasped. “Do you know what you’ve done, Mr.
Brownloe?”
“Ah knows what John Dashwood’s done,” was the answer, “he’s tore ’em
up.”
At this stage a stalwart policeman strolled along on the opposite side
of the street.
[Illustration: DEALING WITH THE JUDGE’S ORDERS.]
The bailiff hailed him by name. The bailiff was intimately
acquainted with the police of the city; and the police of the city were
acquainted with the chief bailiff of the State. John Hop, scenting
trouble, puffed out his chest, and responded to the call.
The bailiff explained the position to his contemporary in the law.
The policeman frowned upon old John, and said in a voice of tremendous
authority:
“Now, get along wid Mister Ballantyne and pay ye’s debts!”
Old John looked bewildered.
“But, policeman, Ah’ve told him Ah dersen’t owe ennerone mooney. And
mah name’s John Dashwood. Ah’m a farmer, coome here fer——”
“Go arn! Go arn wid ye’s!” interrupted the policeman, “that’s an old
yarn! Get awaay to th’ sheriff!”
Old John began to see the matter was genuine and that further
resistance was useless, and the humorous side of the situation started
to strike him.
“Well, if this doan’t beat all,” he said, with a broad smile, “an’ Ah
coomed here to th’ city wi’ mah wife fer a holeeday——”
“An’ ye’ll get it, Oi’m thinkin’,” grinned the bobbie, “though Oi
wudn’t say ye’ll spend it wid your wife.”
The bailiff smiled pleasantly again, and addressed old John:
“Well, shall we take a cab and drive down, Mr. Brownloe?”
“Takes whatever yow likes, seems to me,” and old John laughed. “Ah
dersen’t seem to have mooch say in it atween th’ lot on yow.”
“Oh, you won’t be kept long, I’m sure of that,” said the cheerful
bailiff. “You’ve got a pretty long cheque book. Oh, I’ll bet you have
Mister Brownloe!” and, clapping old John affectionately on the back,
added: “Come along; come along!”
Old John went along, and the cabman scarcely pulled rein till he drew
up at the large front door of the Supreme Court.
It was a busy morning at the court. The criminal sittings were to
open at ten o’clock. The calendar was a heavy one. It was full of
charges of murder, burglary, forgery, bigamy, robbery, horsestealing,
and attempted suicide. Officials of the court—registrars, deputy
registrars, associates, tipstaffs, chief clerks, first clerks, ordinary
common barn door clerks, messengers, bailiffs, assistant bailiffs,
bum-bailiffs and sundry other servants of the Crown were running here
and there with books and papers in their hands, and an air of great
importance on their faces. It was one of the red letter days of the
court, and a great day for the officials. They bounded up the broad
staircase that led to the temple of justice like kangaroos ascending
the wall of a range, and bounded down it again. Along the main corridor
of the building moved a stream of humanity which included all sorts
and conditions of people—people with money and position, people with
neither; people with ambition, people without any; people fresh from
the university, people who had never heard of such an institution;
people who preached the gospel of Christ, people who picked pockets.
And mingled with the mob were lawyers laden with bundles of papers
tied with green tape; pressmen trailing walking sticks after them;
doctors in gold-rimmed spectacles; inspectors of police in uniform;
jurymen, lost and helpless looking, enquiring of others where they
were to go; witnesses making similar enquiries; the downcast father,
the broken-hearted mother of an unfortunate son on trial; then last
but by no means least, quite a small army of clean-shaven gentlemen
wearing long black gowns that flogged their heels, and crowns of
horse-hair, with idiotic “pumpkin” curls dangling to them, swaggered
along as though their absurdly-decorated heads contained all the brains
of the world. In their hands they carried, by way of advertisement,
imposing-looking volumes of the law. And from out this profane medley
of humanity old John emerged at the sheriff’s office. The bailiff
opened a door which had printed upon it in large ornamental letters:
“Chief Bailiff,” and invited his prisoner to take a chair and make
himself comfortable and happy. Removing his coat, which he brushed
carefully, he washed his hands and face and combed his hair and
whiskers. Then, after considering himself in a shabby little mirror,
which he extracted from a cedar press, he looked at his watch, a
Waterbury, secured to his vest by a magnificent brass chain.
Old John sat and stared about the room. It was a cold, dingy-looking
crib, that deserved to be tenanted by a bailiff. The kalsomined
walls were as bare as blazes and disfigured with blobs of grease and
ink-splashes and pencil writings of every hue. A photo. print of the
Attorney General of the day, cut from the morning newspaper, was pasted
over the fire-place. It was pasted there in the hope that the original
of it might look in one day and, seeing it, decide upon giving the
bailiff a rise of screw for his devotion and loyalty. The bailiff
learnt this wrinkle from his under-secretary, an imported cuss who, by
similar servility, achieved the sensational act of scaling the walls of
the service in a pair of policeman’s boots.
No covering was upon the floor, but the presence of stained borders and
a number of battered tacks bore testimony that it had been carpeted,
before the bailiff entered into possession of it. “Higher officials”
have no respect for the comforts of a bailiff, except when their tailor
issues a writ against them. And then, but only then, they weep on his
neck and hold his hand in a brotherly way.
Standing stolidly in the centre of the room was a large pine table,
on which stood three glass ink-bottles labelled “red,” “black,” and
“purple” respectively, a grimy old tumbler half filled with dirty shot,
a wonderful variety of pens and pencils, sufficient to set up a country
school, and a large quantity of foolscap, some of it torn, some of it
scribbled on, some envelopes of all lengths and shapes, and blank,
printed forms galore, some headed in large type: “Jury Summons”; some
“Warrant on Ca Re”; some “Warrant on Ca Sa”; some “Warrant on Ha Fa”;
some “Warrant on Fi Fa”; and some more “Instructions to Bailiffs.”
And it was all chucked about in any order, and no order at all.
Before this jumble of stationery the bailiff calmly seated himself in a
heavy chair, the legs of which scratched channels in the floor when he
dragged it under him, and proceeded to arrange the papers “Smith _v._
Brownloe.”
“Well, now, Mr. Brownloe,” he said, turning to our patient friend with
a winning smile, “before we go in and see the sheriff I’ll just endorse
the warrant with your answers. You refuse to pay me this £850 because
you say you are not the defendant mentioned in the warrant. Is that so,
Mr. Brownloe?”
“Just as Ah told yow afore,” answered old John.
The bailiff nodded, and proceeded to write things on the back of
the warrant. When he had finished his face assumed a serious,
saintly expression, a habit he had acquired from long practice as a
lay-preacher.
“Of course you know, Mr. Brownloe,” he said, rubbing his hands
together, “and I only mention the matter now in your interests, you
know, entirely in your own interests, and you’re a man I can’t help
respecting, really I can’t; in fact I’ve taken quite a fancy to you in
the short time that we’ve known each other, so I have, and what I would
impress on you to be really very careful about is that the plaintiff’s
solicitors, you know, will fight this matter to the bitter end, and
if it should turn out after all that you really _are_ the defendant
mentioned, my word, then I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Mr.
Brownloe, oh, not for thousands, not for all the gold in Australia”;
and the bailiff opened his eyes and shook his head gloomily. Then,
breaking into a friendly laugh. “Oh, I fancy I can see you in that box
upstairs with Mr. Bumpkins, the barrister, at you! Besides,” he added,
“you would have to stump up a lot more then than it will cost you now.
Even my own costs would be ever so much greater. They don’t come to
very much just yet. Let me see” (makes a calculation), “yes, only five
pounds ten, including cab fare. But just think for a moment what the
solicitors’ costs would come to” (here he leaned back and laughed
loud). “I don’t suppose anyone in this world, Mr. Brownloe, could say
what _they_ would come to.”
“Well, all that’s got nothing to do wi’ me!” old John answered,
shortly; and the bailiff lost hope.
“Well, you _are_ a determined man, Mr. Brownloe,” he said. “I _do_
admire you for it,” and jumping up he opened a small trap window in the
thick brick wall and looked out upon a nest of clerks assembled in the
next room, munching fruit.
“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed. “Did I give you a fright, Mr. Maypole?”
“I thought you were that rotter of an under-secretary spying round
again!” a voice was heard to say, which was followed by a burst of
clerical laughter, and a large banana that whizzed through at the
bailiffs beard.
The bailiff closed the trap window with a loud bang, and stood
listening to things rapping the other side of it that sounded like
hail-stones pelting a roof.
“They’re such awful beggars in there,” he said to old John,
“for playing jokes. Oh, dear me, I _would_ enjoy myself if the
under-secretary were to pop in here just now and open this window. He
_would_ get such a one in the eye!”
“Ah-h,” remarked old John; “who be he?”
“Who _is_ he!” and the bailiff looked as though amazed to find that
any person living did not know that exalted being, the under-secretary!
“Oh, he’s the head of the department—the head of us all.”
Cautiously he opened the trap window again, and, finding the clerks had
settled down to work, called out:
“Mr. Maypole, is the sheriff in his office do you know?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” came the answer, “if he’s not gone into court.”
“Well, look here, Mr. Maypole, I’ve Mr. Brownloe with me, and I must
see the sheriff most urgently.” Then, catching Mr. Maypole’s eye, the
bailiff winked a wink, the meaning of which was perfectly understood by
the gentleman, at the head of the clerks’ quarters.
The bailiff seated himself at his table again and commenced writing at
a wonderful rate of speed.
Next moment Mr. Maypole, with a pile of papers in his hand that might
have referred to all the matters in the department for ought he knew
at the moment, entered the room, and, as an excuse for his appearance,
asked a fictitious question about the service of a jury summons.
“I’ll tell you all about it in two minutes, Mr. Maypole, if you just
sit down for a while,” answered the busy bailiff; “I want to catch the
sheriff first, before he goes into court,” and, rising, he rushed off
to capture his boss.
And Mr. Maypole, the clerk, was left in charge of the prisoner, which,
of course, was the object of his entering the room. From behind the
folds of a closely-written document, which he pretended to study very
hard, he started to stare curiously at old John. Old John took little
or no notice of Mr. Maypole. Old John was lost in meditation. Mr.
Maypole went red in the face. He smiled a little; then, taking his eyes
off the prisoner, he rose quickly and referred to defendant’s name in
the official documents lying on the bailiff’s table.
Looking up at old John, he asked, with a broad smile:
“Your name is not Brownloe, is it?”
“Well,” old John answered slowly, “Ah can’t get this gentleman yere to
believe as it ain’t, and that’s why Ah’m yere.”
“You’re Mr. Dashwood, ain’t you, from Fairfield?” this with a broad
grin of proud recognition.
Old John gave a start, and stared at Mr. Maypole.
“Do you know me, then?” he cried, the light of joy rushing to his eye.
“Oh, yes, I ought to know you,” with a continuation of the grin of
recognition, “I’m Jim Maypole, Mr. Dashwood.”
Old John gave a bigger start.
“Why bless my ’eart, where wer’ me eyes! Yower father’s place be just
next to mine. Hoh! hoh! lord yes, why yower th’ one as we used to call
little Jimmy, an yow went to school wi’ my James!” And old John nearly
shook the clerk’s arm out of joint.
“I was over at your place last Christmas,” said he, “when on a holiday.”
“Oh, don’t Ah remember,” gushed old John, “but you’ve growed lad;
you’ve growed.”
“And what the deuce are you doing here on this matter?” asked Mr.
Maypole; pointing to the official documents.
All old John’s good humour had returned to him.
“Hoh! hoh! hoh!” he laughed, “this man yere” (meaning the bailiff) “and
a policeman, and another fellow as left us dahn th’ street, and a cab
wi’ two grey horses in it fetched me here, Jimmy.”
“Jimmy” laughed.
“Ah-h,” went on old John, “and the missus and Granmoother and all of
’em don’t know where I are.”
“What! are they all down with you?” cried the clerk.
“All on ’em were inside the poob when Ah were collared ahtside!”
The clerk saw the humour of the situation and broke into mirth.
“Ah-h,” continued old John, “and them wer’ sure my name was Brownloe
or summit, and ’em only asks me to pay eight oondered for th’ tahtle,
Jimmy.”
Jimmy had to hold his sides. And old John rocked about in the chair.
Their enjoyment was interrupted by the hurried entrance of the excited
bailiff.
“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Brownloe,” he gasped, “I really must apologise,
but the sheriff has gone into court and——”
“Well, _you_ are a chump, Ballantyne!” the clerk said, wiping the tears
from his eyes, “this is not _Brownloe_, this is Mr. Dashwood from
Fairfield, an old friend of my father’s, and I’ve known him since I was
a kiddy.”
“Ah knowed Jimmy yere,” old John laughed, “since he wer’ in napkins!”
The bailiff went white, and sunk backward against the closed door.
“Our nearest neighbour for years,” added the clerk. “How on earth did
you come to make such a bloomer?”
“Oh, I can’t be blamed! I can’t! I can’t! It’s not my mistake. Oh, that
awful fool of a clerk that Jones and Robertson sent to point him out!”
and the bailiff showed symptoms of becoming seriously ill.
Mr. Maypole stood and grinned.
“Oh, dear, this is awful!” whined the bailiff. “Oh, _do_ ring up Jones
and Robertson like a good fellow and ask one of the firm to come up at
once! I’m too unnerved to do anything myself. Oh, there will be trouble
over this! Oh, let me have a drink of water!”
“That last case of wrongful arrest,” remarked the clerk maliciously,
“cost the office what, about nine hundred pounds, and two men their
billets.”
“Oh, _do_ ring up the solicitors!” cried the miserable bailiff, while
his knees rattled together like the hangman’s when on duty.
The clerk rang up Jones and Robertson, and, after answering several
questions, and chuckling cheerfully into the machine, turned and said:
“Mr. Jones is coming himself, and is bringing along a gentleman who
knows the defendant Brownloe well.”
The bailiff attempted to make a grateful response, but lost control of
his bottom jaw. “R-r-r-r-r-r R-r-r-r-r!” went his teeth, as though set
in motion by intense cold.
Old John, taking compassion upon him, assured the bailiff that so far
as he “wer’ concerned no harm wer’ done.”
The bailiff pulled himself together, and paced restlessly about the
room.
Suddenly a messenger, out of breath, burst into the room, and gasped
out that William James, a juror, had failed to answer when his name was
called, and that the judge was in a terrible rage, and the sheriff in
a blue funk. “You’re to come up to court at once Mr. Ballantyne,” he
concluded, in a shout, and rushed away again.
The poor bailiff! He collapsed again. “Oh, my heavens!” he moaned, “oh,
my stars!” and placed his hands to his head.
But just then the clatter of shoe leather was heard racing up the
corridor and the form of the absent juror streaked past the open door.
“There he is!” shrieked the bailiff, “there’s Mr. James!” and he
bounded out in pursuit. Next moment he was hanging round the juryman’s
neck beseeching him in the name of heaven, in the name of himself, in
the name of the judge, to hurry into court.
“Oh, to th’ devil with th’ judge! My watch just makes it five minutes
past ten!” growled Mr. James, and on he trotted.
“Oh, what a blessing he’s come!” sighed the bailiff, returning to his
table and mopping the perspiration from his brow. “I needn’t go up now!
Oh, there will be a row when he goes in!”
And there _was_ a row! In less than three minutes juror James came
rushing back to the bailiff’s room.
“Where’s your telephone?” he roared, angrily. “That infernal old dog up
there has fined me ten pounds! But I’ll show him if I’ll pay or not!”
He turned the handle of the machine with great violence.
“Give me the Attorney General!” he shouted “Confound it, are you deaf!
The _Attorney General_! No, d— it! I don’t want your under-secretary. I
want to speak to Mr. McBrown himself! Eh? Mr. James of James and Black
speaking!”
The clerk looked across at the bailiff; the bailiff looked across at
the clerk.
“Is that Mr. McBrown?” continued juror James. “Oh, how are you, Dan.
Look here, Dan, I’m in trouble. I was five minutes late on the jury
just now—and the common jury, no less—and this old barbarian that you
keep on the bench here fined me ten pounds!”
There was a silence, during which the conversation was conducted by
“Dan,” the Attorney General.
Then juror James began again:
“Oh, right you are, Dan,” he said, “I’ll come round and see you right
away!” and, dropping the ’phone he winked triumphantly at the bailiff
and hurried away.
“That’s strong, if you like!” remarked the clerk.
The bailiff chuckled.
“Catch Mr. James paying a fine,” he said; “not while he’s one of Mr.
McBrown’s chief political supporters!”
“And they say the course of justice is never interfered with in
Australia!” remarked the clerk again.
“Oh, _never_!” said the bailiff, with a broad smile; “never! never!
_never_!”
And the incident had hardly closed when Mr. Jones, of Jones and
Robertson, accompanied by the gentleman acquainted with defendant
Brownloe, arrived.
One glance at old John satisfied the said gentleman. He turned to the
lawyer and shook his head in the negative. The lawyer flew off the
handle.
“Have you arrested this gentleman as the defendant?” he asked, in
scornful tones of the bailiff.
The bailiff fairly trembled.
“Your clerk pointed him out, Mr. Jones, and I couldn’t——”
“I don’t know anything about what our clerk did!” interrupted the
lawyer, “but I presume the sheriff’s office knows its business, and if
it is pleased to arrest the first man it meets in the street, while the
real defendant is allowed to escape by its neglect, then of course it
must put up with the consequences. We want that writ against Brownloe
executed, Mr. Ballantyne,” and the lawyer, with his companion, turned
and left.
A cold shiver came over the bailiff and he sunk in a limp heap into his
chair.
“Well, Ah suppose they don’t want me any more, Jimmy?” old John said,
addressing the clerk.
“No, Mr. Dashwood,” the clerk answered, “not unless you are going to
issue a writ against the office for wrongful arrest!”
Old John shook his head contemptuously, and held out his hand to say
good-bye.
“Good-bye, Mr. Dashwood,” the clerk said, “but you ought to go up and
spend half an hour in the court now that you are here. You might hear
something amusing up there.”
“Ah-h,” said old John, falling in with the idea, “an’ which way do yow
go, Jimmy, to get in there?”
“Just round the corner of the passage, here, Mr. Dashwood,” answered
the clerk, pointing out through the door. “The stairs are there on your
right; you can’t miss them. Just go up them and you’ll see a crowd of
people hanging about the door. Go right in; but I don’t think you’ll be
able to get a seat.”
“Ah, well, Ah don’t soopose they’ll hang me,” answered old John
cheerfully, and, shaking hands with Jimmy again, added: “Ah’ll tell
father as how Ah saw yow when we goes back to Fairfield.” And off he
rocked in search of the court-room.
The mouth of another wide corridor leading to the judges’ private
chambers was all that caught old John’s eye, and down that dull and
gloomy corridor he fearlessly stalked. At the bottom of it be found a
staircase, a narrow staircase, sacred to the use of judges only, and by
which their Honours always ascended to the bench. For any other court
official to make use of that staircase was a felony!
Without a moment’s thought or hesitation old John mounted those stairs
and, with the clumsiness of an elephant, up he climbed, step after
step, until finally and suddenly he landed on a Brussels carpet and
stood in full gaze of the crowded court-room and the bar, and within
a kick of the sheriff and the gorgeously-gowned and heavily-wigged
judge. Oh, horror! Had the Kelly Gang, armed to the teeth and with
its hat and armour on, arrived on the bench by those stairs at that
moment the court and spectators could not have looked more staggered or
astonished. The hair on the head of every policeman reared up on its
end, and their mouths opened like caves. The crown prosecutor, in the
middle of his address to the jury, shut up like a shop, and stared as
though the ghost of all his past sins had suddenly risen up before him.
The judge, hearing something grunt behind him as old John negotiated
the last step, swung half way round in his chair, and, suddenly
crouching low as one in the act of dodging a revolver shot, held up his
bejewelled hands as if silently imploring mercy. The sheriff, whose
duty it was to protect the person of His Honour, even at the sacrifice
of his own life rose to the occasion. The sheriff had been a military
man, and was no coward. In fact it was the one opportunity he had often
longed for through his long, sleepy official career. But before he
could grapple with the intruder the latter had disappeared down the
stairs again. The sheriff disappeared in pursuit. Then there was a
commotion! Every policeman, plain and fancy, every official in court
rushed out by the front way and threw himself down the broad staircase
in order to intercept the offender before he could reach the street.
Arriving at the ground floor they encountered the sheriff in tow with
the runaway. The former had a pleasant smile on his face, and old John
was waving his large hands about and making loud efforts to explain
that he had merely wandered up the stairs to see how the court managed
its affairs. “Jimmy Maypole,” he said, “told me the way, but Ah moost
have made a mistake.” Along with a score more excited-looking clerks
Mr. Maypole came skipping along to witness the fun. He got a surprise
when he found it was his friend Mr. Dashwood who was the cause of the
trouble. And the truth of the situation dawned on him at once.
“Why,” he said, pushing his way through the crowd to the side of old
John, “you must have taken the wrong stairs, Mr. Dashwood!”
[Illustration: IN THE WRONG BOX.]
The sheriff didn’t want any further explanation. “Merely a mistake,” he
said, smiling pleasantly upon old John and the police. Then he left
and returned to court to console His Honour.
“Well, Jimmy,” said old John, addressing Mr. Maypole once more. “Ah
thinks Ah better get out o’ this yere city an’ be off back to th’ farm
afore Ah gets into more trouble.”
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
CHAPTER V.
A Leading Barrister.
While the rest of his family preferred the pleasures of a Melba
concert, held in the Town Hall, old John chose to spend the evening
with an old friend, who, with his family, resided far out in the
suburbs, and who, like old John himself, possessed an overweaning
predilection for draught playing. These two old fogies pored over the
board until such a late hour that old John narrowly escaped missing
the last tram back to town. And before half the sections had been
traversed he was the one solitary occupant of the car, and the only
passenger left to alight at the terminus. Prompted no doubt by the
glad feeling of having at last finished for “the day,” the conductor
called out a cheerful “good-night” as our quaint friend crept down
off the footboard. Old John paused for a moment to study the lay of
the town, then directed his footsteps for the hotel. The smellsome
street was dark, and dull, and empty. Not a sound, save the echo of
his own footsteps ringing out on the hard, hollow pavements, pervaded
it. The crowds of jostling people had gone; all the theatre-goers had
long since wended their way to their homes and lodging places; street
singers, cheap jacks, and beggars had departed; the sin and vice of the
city that was usually flaunting round in paint and powder and all the
alluring colours of the rainbow had disappeared as completely as though
swallowed by an earthquake. A light, drizzling rain was falling, and
wretchedness and misery seemed to hang like a shroud over the dazzling
city. A few lights still flickered afar out on the silent, ghostly
waters of the dark and distant harbour. Mayhaps, in the absence of the
great shop illuminations, the pallid gas-lamps holding sentry at the
street corners burned brighter than they were wont to do.
A night-porter unbolted the large front door of the hotel with grating
noise, and with a series of bows and succulent smiles admitted old John.
“Ah’m late, eh?” he said, apologetically.
The porter smiled some more.
“Not the latest, though, sir,” he answered, in a consoling tone of
voice. “There’s any amount more to come after you.”
“What, to-naht?” and old John looked surprised.
“Oh, I don’t know about to-night, sir,” with a significant grin, “some
of them generally turn up about morning.”
He bolted the door again, and old John peregrinated in the direction of
the elevator. A light was burning in the hotel office. Two gentlemen
were leaning on the bottom half of the double door that guarded it,
conversing volubly. One had been to the theatre and still wore his
dress suit, and a large diamond stud shone in the centre of his
starched shirt like the morning star. The other wore a long top-coat,
buttoned all the way down, beneath which a pair of carpet slippers
protruded. A couple of empty glasses stood before them, resting on the
door ledge.
The one in the long coat and carpet slippers greeted old John
boisterously.
“Hello!” he cried, “this is a nice hour for a respectable married man
to come in!”
Old John, who had made the gentleman’s acquaintance during the course
of numerous quiet chats in the smoking-room, laughed, and said:
“Ah-h, but that be th’ pot calling th’ kettle black. Why ain’t _yow_ in
bed?”
“Well, I was,” answered the other in extenuation, and throwing open
his top-coat displayed a suit of gaudy pyjamas, “but my friend, here,
dragged me out to come down and have a drink with him. Let me introduce
you” (turning to his friend). “Mr. Dashwood, one of our wealthiest
and most successful farmers. Mr. Portland, Mr. Dashwood; one of our
country’s brightest barristers. In fact, I might say the brightest
counsel in the Commonwealth. I suppose you’ve heard of him.”
Old John had heard of barrister Portland, and proceeded to make a
great mouthful of the circumstance. He was overjoyed at making the
acquaintance of such a noted person.
“Oh! Ah-h! Mah word!” he exclaimed, seizing hold of the great counsel’s
extended hand, “Ah wer’ on th’ jury once, when yow were defenden th’
presoners.”
Barrister Portland’s eye began to sparkle with the glow of professional
pride.
“Indeed,” he said; “when was that, Mr. Dashwood?”
Old John gave him the day and date, and the name of the presiding
judge, and those of the prisoners, with a few remarks thrown in on the
personal inconvenience he himself underwent during a busy harvest time
to attend the assizes.
Mr. Portland remembered the sittings, and all its attendant
circumstances and triumphs perfectly.
[Illustration: ONE IN THE MORNING.]
“Oh, by Jove, yes,” he observed, turning with enthusiasm to his
long-coated companion. “I defended six prisoners that day, Murphy,
five of them as d— scoundrels as ever looked a judge in the eye. The
other was a harmless poor devil of a nigger, who seemed to regard his
trial for murder as a sort of bora ceremony. In fact, I had an idea
all the time that he thought we were marrying him to a nice little
gin, and that I was there simply acting as best man, and old Judge
Browser tying the knot.” (Here Murphy laughed heartily.) “Well the
five d— scoundrels, I might tell you, that I reckoned on having a
devil of a fight for, I got off without turning a hair. ‘Not guilty,’
said the jury” (here Mr. Portland laughed himself). “But to my utter
astonishment your friend here” (smiling at old John) “and his brother
jurymen put the rope round the poor unfortunate nigger’s neck without
leaving the box.” Then, addressing old John: “I could never understand
that verdict, Mr. Dashwood!”
“Ah, well, yow see,” answered old John, “we let five on ’em go, an’ it
would a looked bad to let ’em all off!”
“Ah! and so you hanged the nigger for preference!” said Mr. Portland.
“Well, that’s candid, and it shows that there are occasions in
Australia when a nigger is chosen for a job before a white man.” Then
turning to the night-porter, who stood behind the office door listening
to the conversation with a broad smile on his clean-shaven, flinty
face: “Fill those up again. What are you going to drink, Mr. Dashwood?”
Old John hesitated.
“Well,” he drawled, “Ah dersent drink but very little as a rule.”
“Well, you are going to break the rule this time,” insistently from the
great barrister. “You see, Mr. Dashwood,” he added, “I don’t know when
I might have you on one of my juries again.”
“Ah, well, a little port wine,” said old John to the porter.
The three glasses being filled, they drank to each other’s health,
wealth and continued prosperity. Then the leading counsel of the
Commonwealth, who had accounted for numerous drinks during the
evening, talked with increased volubility, and grew reminiscent of
his Bar experiences. With a profundity and fluency that was amazing
he poured forth anecdote after anecdote, recounted stories of the
various judges that would have made their Honours blush to hear, and
related sensational instances of juries being bribed and intimidated.
He mimicked the mannerisms and styles of speech that characterised his
less successful brothers at the Bar, till his friend Murphy, the porter
behind the “door,” and old John were forced to hold their sides in
order to prevent internal dislocations.
To old John in particular the great barrister’s company was heaven
upon earth. It was the first time in his long life that he had been
privileged to share learned society. Besides, the port wine was of
the best. And taking advantage of a lull, while Mr. Portland lit for
himself a large superbly-flavoured cigar, he said, with enthusiasm, to
the porter: “Just fill them yere glasses up again, my boy!”
The porter filled those glasses again; and old John, rummaging his
pockets, discovered they were empty of silver.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter, sir,” said the porter accommodatingly. “I’ll
mark them up, and you can pay for them in the morning.” Then, as if to
emphasise his confidence in old John, he spilled one out for himself,
which he also marked down to old John.
“Never worry about owing a few drinks here, Mr. Dashwood,” the famous
barrister remarked off-handedly, “the hotel belongs to a wealthy
temperance syndicate. A good harvest, Mr. Dashwood.” Down went the
whisky in a gulp, then, smacking his lips a few times, Mr. Portland
took a pull at the cigar, and plunged into a story about “a deaf and
dumb fellow, a college chum of his who turned out to be one of the most
capable and eloquent pleaders at the Bar in Mexico.”
Suddenly and solemnly the great city clock, a mile up the street,
chimed out the hour as 1.30 o’clock. The great barrister stopped in
the middle of his story, pricked his ears, and quoted a weird lump of
Latin verse that had particular reference to graves, and the dead, and
midnight.
As the melancholy echoes of the clock died away several solemn,
dusty-looking hotel-hands, habitues of the scullery, appeared, shoving
before them a lengthy four-wheeled trolly, upon which was stacked to an
alarming height a magnificent pile of boots and shoes—males’, females’
and children’s—and the soles of which were numbered in chalk.
“Upon my honour, just look here,” exclaimed Mr. Portland, upon
observing the cargo of shoe leather that had been “put out” by the
lodgers to be cleaned while they themselves slumbered peaceably in
their hired beds, “now isn’t that a sight worth sitting up to see—eh?
Isn’t it?”
“An’ that ain’t all of ’em,” sorrowfully remarked one of the dusty
boot-blacks, while his two companions stood beside the pile and grinned
grins of irony.
“You don’t say so!” cried Mr. Portland enthusiastically, “and are you
fellows going to polish that ship-load before morning?”
“Before mornin’?” grinned one. “It’s that now, sir!”
“Then before you start on your long and early journey round those
number nines, gentlemen, you had better have a drink.”
The boot-blacks required no second invitation. And they didn’t wait to
make enquiries as to the respectability of the person who desired them
to drink with him. Boot-blacks all know the dangers of delays. Their
feet didn’t hit the floor once before they arrived with a loud bang
against the office door.
“Brandy, Billy,” they all said in the same breath.
Mr. Portland bowed interrogatively to old John. Old John said he’d
“have port wine again.”
Mr. Portland himself and his friend Murphy remained true to whisky.
“Best respec’s, sir,” said the boot-blacks, up-ending their glasses.
“Your very best health, gentlemen; and a pleasant morning,” responded
the noted barrister—“a pleasant morning.”
He emptied his glass and strode over to the heap of shoe leather and
surveyed it. A huge, ugly male boot of great length caught his legal
eye. He lifted it, and stared long and studiously at it. “Enough to
give any man ten years!” he said scornfully, and dropped the boot back
on the pile.
The boot-blacks grinned.
“That’s Judge Yorrick’s,” one of them said. “He’s here to-night!”
“Heavens!” cried Mr. Portland, lifting the long, ill-shaped boot again,
“so it is! I should have known it by the utter look of imbecility it
has about it; by the woeful lack of decision and direction that’s
stamped all over it; and, above all, I most certainly should have
recognised its distinguished owner in it by the almost entire absence
of a sole! Poor old Yorrick! I know you too —— well,” and once more
Mr. Portland dropped the boot on the pile. Looking further afield his
eyes rested on a lady’s shoe with “21” chalked on the sole of it. He
took it in his hand and turned it over and over tenderly. He pressed it
to his starched bosom and said: “Ah, th’ dear, dainty little thing.”
(Old John and Murphy laughed.) “Could that innocent, empty little shoe
but speak!”
The chalked figures on the sole caught his eye, “Ah! and your owner is
only 21. A tender age! The bloom and bud of life!”
“Twenty-one!” growled one of the boot-blacks. “Yer wouldn’t say so if
yer see’d her upstairs, sir. A leather-necked ole hen, what’s nearer a
century. ‘Twenty-one’ is only the number of her room!”
“What!” cried Mr. Portland sharply, “that’s—that’s _my wife’s_, then!”
Then all at once it seemed to come upon him from different directions
that he had been basely insulted.
A burst of laughter greeted his ears.
“You d— ruffian!” he shouted and flung the shoe at the head of the
offending boot-black, who promptly ducked and took refuge in the dark
shades of the elevator encasement. The two remaining boot-blacks
entered into the humour of the situation. Mr. Portland turned his wrath
upon them.
[Illustration: “BOOTS O!”]
“Scullery rats!” he cried. “Take that! and _that_!” aiming in quick
succession at them Judge Yorrick’s large ill-tempered-looking boots.
The shoe-blacks dodged this way and that. The leading counsel of the
Commonwealth armed himself with a fresh supply of clog-hoppers, and
pursued them with vengeance in his eye. The night-porter and Murphy and
old John pursued Mr. Portland, calling upon him to “take no notice.”
The affrighted shoe-blacks flew up several flights of the great stairs.
Mr. Portland pelted them up on to the fourth landing. Here he was
overtaken by the night-porter, his friend Murphy and old John. They
beseeched him in the interests of the slumbering lodgers, and in the
good name and reputation of the hotel, to desist.
Mr. Portland desisted.
“Well, call the scavengers back,” he said, starting to descend the
stairs, “and we’ll have a doch-an-doris.”
The night-porter called them back. With grins on their faces the
shoe-blacks returned cautiously to their pile of boots.
“A doch-an-doris, you sweeps,” called out the great barrister to them,
“and I’ll file a _Nolle Prosequi_ against you, and let you off without
a stain on your blackened characters.”
The three shoe-blacks came up to the office door again, smiling.
They all drank again.
“Well, we’ve had a very pleasant evening,” Mr. Portland said,
addressing his friend Murphy, “taking it all in all. And Mr. Dashwood,”
turning to old John, “I have to thank you for the pleasure of your
company this evening, and I’m quite alive to the fact that your stay
with us was prolonged at acute personal inconvenience and sacrifice to
yourself. Porter,” to the night officer, as he pointed to the lift,
“lead thou the way to that virtuous bug-roost for the joys of which I
am paying four guineas a week!”
The porter led the way; and the merry trio ascended in the lift to
disperse on different floors and seek their respective rooms.
* * * * *
Next morning, old John, with some silver in his hand and a look of
repentance on his brow, sought the night-porter.
“What is it Ah owes yow for last naht,” he enquired, in a confidential
whisper.
With a meaning smile the porter referred to the pages of a pocket book.
“I thought we were going to have some trouble, last night, sir?” he
began. But old John wasn’t to be drawn. He had no inclination whatever
to discuss the doings of “last night.”
“How mooch, lad?” he whispered again, glancing restlessly over his
shoulder to see if Mrs. Dashwood was hovering near.
“Yours come to—let me see—one pound two and sixpence,” and the porter’s
face never moved a muscle or disclosed the slightest suspicion of his
feeling in any way the pangs of a guilty conscience.
Old John staggered visibly.
“Eh?” he said, “Ah only put down one lot o’ drinks, weren’t it?” and he
glanced back over his shoulder again.
“I don’t suppose you remember, sir,” said the unblushing flunkey, in
low, guarded tones that insinuated scandal and disgrace, “y’ know you
were shouting right and left for all hands. Oh, you were _terrible_ bad
last night, sir, terrible bad!”
Here old John observed Mrs. Dashwood making towards him from the
breakfast room.
“One pahnd two an’ sex,” he murmured, dropping the coin into the
porter’s hand.
“Right, sir, thank you, sir,” said that gentle, obliging rascal, and,
with a heavy sinking feeling at his heart, old John turned away.
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
CHAPTER VI.
Meeting McClure.
Monday.
“_Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-g-g-g._” And the
great town-clock, towering in solitary state above the noisy, dirty
city, proclaimed it one o’clock. One o’clock! The hour when the great
army of poorly-paid clerks, clerks with little lungs, little vitality,
and less prospects, clerks with wives and large families dependent
upon them, put down their pens with weary sigh, and, turning to the
modest sandwich bulked in the packet with a banana, begin their mid-day
meal; the hour when ministers of the crown, heads of departments,
proprietors, directors and managers of business houses, bank managers,
promoters of gold mines, coal mines and delusive oil mines, and the
horde of affluent purse-proud members of city society swagger forth
with air of rare importance into the main thoroughfares to advertise
their persons and prosperity and to dine largely and expensively at the
clubs, the grand hotels, and the swell tea-rooms. One o’clock! the
hour when doors of smellsome factories open to emit teams of men and
women, boys and girls, into the open for a mouthful of fresh air, some
to collect in circles about the doors, munching their bit of lunch,
some to hang round the nearest street corner, others to play quoits
or gamble for pence on some vacant allotment or down a dark lane; the
hour when followers of the turf or football and cricket congregate
before the sporting rendezvous to smoke cigars and cigarettes, and
to criticise all that happened, or that should have happened, on the
Saturday before; the hour, too, when the labour agitator, seizing time
by the forelock, takes the stump in park and square to straighten out
the political question of the day and arrange things with the working
man for the effective belting of “boodle” with the heavy end of the
ballot box.
And, standing beneath that great clock, old John and Peter stared up
at its giddy height and wondered by what means it was ever elevated to
such a position. And while they debated the matter with each other a
burly, hairy form in a new roomy tweed suit and a new hat waddled from
the crowd and greeted them in cheery, familiar voice.
“Mah gracious me if ’n ain’t Duncan McClure!” cried old John, holding
out his hand, while Peter started to laugh with delight at the welcome
and unexpected appearance of their good-natured country cousin.
“By criky!” said Duncan, his humorous little eyes twinkling merrily
from behind the rolls of fat that gathered in his hairy cheeks, “I was
standin’ ower there a’maist cryin’ harrd, while I was listenin’ tae a
chap singin’ ‘Th’ Bonnie Hills o’ Scotland’ when I keeked ower here
an’ saw ye. ‘By cripes!’ I said, ‘if that’s no auld John Dashwood an’
Peter, I’ll eat ma bloomin’ bonnet.’”
“Ah-h,” laughed old John, “you’ve good eyes, Duncan; an’ yow won’t have
to eat yow’re hat.”
“By gosh, an’ I’m jolly glad aboot it, for Ah jist bocht it oot o’ a
shop the noo, and it cost me five an’ saxpence,” and, taking his hat
off, McClure invited his friends to pass their friendly opinion upon
the merits of his purchase.
They both gazed on the felt and at McClure’s bare head and smiled.
“Dae ye no think it’s dirt cheap at five an saxpence?” asked McClure
proudly. “It’s sic a lang time sin’ I bocht onything mysel wi’oot th’
wife that I had maist forgotten hoo tae make a deal wi’ th’ skaff-raff
ahind th’ coonter.”
Old John dragged his own “nail-can” off, and answered:
“Well, Ah paid fourteen shillins for yon.”
“Holy Smoke!” and McClure pulled a long and serious face. “Ye maun be
gaun balmy.”
“It’s a good het, though,” John said, in justification of the
expenditure.
“Weel, it’s a different sorrt tae mine,” Duncan drawled, “that ane o’
yours is th’ sorrt Tam o’ Todshaw an’ auld George Reid an’ some o’ th’
blackfellows that gets hats gi’en tae them for naething wears. I dinna
care for that style mysel’ a bit. They look well eneuch on you, though,
Dashwood; a lot better than on George Reid.”
Peter removed _his_ head-gear and remarked that he only paid “eight
bob” for it.
“I wadna be seen deid wi’ a hat like that, Peter,” Duncan said. “By
cripes, I dinna ken where ye got ane like it.”
Peter laughed, and all three replaced their hats on their heads, quite
oblivious of the fact that a number of people standing by were smiling
hard at them.
“I didn’t know yow were dahn here, McClure,” old John remarked, opening
up fresh conversation.
“Tae tell th’ truth,” Duncan answered, “I didna mean tae come doon till
I kent ye were here yoursel’, Dashwood. ‘I’ll swear be ma soul,’ I said
tae the wife, ’auld Johnny Dashwood’s hae’n a deil o’ a gude time o’
it,’ an’ she said: ‘Well, can ye nae gang doon yoursel’?’ ‘By cripes,
now,’ I thocht, ‘I just will,’ and I had nae sooner thocht it than a
chap frae th’ railway came along an’ telt us a’ aboot th’ cheap fares——”
Here a sudden gust of wind lifted McClure’s hat from his head and
propelled it into the centre of the street, amongst the traffic. Peter
pursued it on Duncan’s behalf. Before he could rescue it, however, a
cabman’s horse put his foot in it, and cut gashes in the crown of it.
Peter, smiling, returned with it in his hand.
“By cripes, now!” Duncan said, staring at the ruin, “isn’t that a holy
terror. It’s eneuch tae make a bloomin’ pairson swear.”
Old John went off into laughter: “Hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh!” he roared,
while he rocked and rolled about on the pavement.
“Bust ye!” Duncan said, and, punching the damaged felt into some sort
of shape with his fat fist, pulled it over his head again, leaving a
tuft of his hair sticking up through it like the comb on a cock’s head.
Old John and Peter laughed more.
“Yow can’t wear yon now, McClure,” old John said, advisedly, “yow moost
get anoother.”
“I’ll need tae get a bit o’ a snack first,” answered Duncan, plunging
both hands into his roomy pockets and looking quite happy as he stared
about him. Then after a silence:
“Hae you fellows had a feed yet?”
Neither old John or Peter had had lunch, but both were hungry.
[Illustration: MCCLURE’S HAT.]
“There’s a rrattlin’ gude place just roon this corner,” McClure
suggested. “A blackfellow keeps it—weel he’s na exac’ly a blackfellow,
either, he’s mair o’ a yaller fellow, but he keeps gude stuff, an’ he
gi’es ye a grreat lump o’ steak what’s a’ fu’ o’ juice. By crikey! an’
when ye takes a mouthfu’ o’ it ye hae tae eat like a rracehorse tae
keep it frae a’ rinnin’ oot down yer cheeks,” and, waddling off through
the thronging people, McClure conducted John and Peter to his favoured
restaurant.
When they had comfortably seated themselves at a small table, and given
their orders to a robust-looking waiter, Duncan, staring before him,
observed dryly:
“By Christmas, that’s a braw necktie ye hae on, Dashwood. I can see it
quite plain i’ that lookin’-glass ower there!”
Peter, starting to giggle, began adjusting his tie in the mirror.
“Oh, yours isn’t nearly sae gran’, Peter,” Duncan added, noticing the
action of the other.
But old John offered no remark. He neither excused nor denied the
gaiety of his neck adornments. He merely groaned, and glared about to
see if there were any signs of the lunch arriving.
Duncan, catching Peter’s eye in the mirror, winked and remarked further:
“It reminds me o’ a grreat joke I used tae hae wi’ auld Sam Snather
and Paddy O’Regan th’ first year that I started selectin’ at Craig-lea.
I’ them days we a’ had tae borrow quite a lot o’ things frae each
ither, an’ these twa auld beggars that I’m gaun tae tell ye aboot were
as harrd as th’ deil hissel to borrow a thing frae. De ye recollec’ any
o’ them, Dashwood?”
Old John said he remembered them well.
“But Peter wadna,” Duncan continued, “he was anely a wean then crawlin’
aboot pu’in’ th’ cat’s tail. Weel, when it became rreal necessary tae
beg th’ lane o’ onything frae auld O’Regan I used tae pu’ roon’ ma neck
a wallopin’ grreat green muffler, an’ bring th’ end o’ it richt back
roon’d me waist an’ ride ower wi’ it showin’ like a rainbow. An’ auld
O’Regan he’d be sae awfu’ pleased that he’d gie me anything he had
aboot th’ farm. In fac’ I believe he’d hae gi’en me his auld saw o’ a
wife tae take away on ma shouther for th’ askin’.”
“I didn’t know he had a wife,” old John remarked.
“By cripes, then,” said McClure, “if it wasna his ane it was some ither
yin’s. There was ane there. But wi’ auld Sam Snather,” he went on, “it
was dufferent. Sam, he was one o’ them wild, blatherin’ Orangemen,
an’ when Ah wantit tae borrow onything frae Sam I was a’ways maist
carefu’ tae pit on a grreat yaller muffler. An’ soon’s I came beside
th’ hoose wi’ mae heid concealed frae view ahint th’ peach trees, I’d
start whusslin’ ‘Th’ Battle o’ th’ Boyne’ michty harrd. By crikey, auld
Sam wad be awfu’ pleased. He’d bring me intae th’ hoose tae show me a
pictur’ o’ th’ grreat battle whaur William fought an’ bled——”
Here the waiter turned up with the “juicy” steak, and all three eagerly
settled down to business.
“Dinna yae think it’s gude beef, Dashwood?” Duncan enquired, eating
noisily.
Old John agreed that it was.
“D’ ye like it, Peter?” and Duncan looked to see how Dashwood junior
was faring.
Peter’s mouth was too full to reply at the moment, but his eyes and
bulging cheeks conveyed all the answer that Duncan required.
For quite a long interval no conversation was carried on, but as the
steak disappeared from his plate Duncan found his tongue again.
“Auld Dill Mackay’s a grreat Orangeman,” he said “Hae ye ever heard him
preach, Dashwood?”
Old John said he hadn’t.
“Naither hae Ah,” said Duncan, “but Ah hae seen a pictur’ o’ his legs
i’ th’ _Bulletin_. D’ ever ye rread th’ _Bulletin_, Dashwood?”
Old John shook his head.
“I suppose you rread th’ _Maissenger_. Ah rread that, too, sometimes,
but there’s a deil o’ a lot o’ religion in it. Th’ _Bulletin_ is
deefferent tae th’ _Maissenger_. It’s a maist irreverent bloomin’
paper, an’ I dinna see what’s tae preevent them as write it frae a’
gaun tae hell thegither; but this pictur’ Ah’m tellin’ ye aboot wi’
auld Dill’s twa legs wi’ his trews rolled abune th’ knee, would make
th’ deil himsel’ laugh, by cripes it would. An’ by crikey, he’s got
sic’ grreat legs, too. Oor auld pairson hasna got legs near like
them. We keep him too beggarin’ puir tae let them get as fat as Dill
Mackay’s. Cripes, he maun eat an awfu’ lot tae get legs like what he
has. Mine are pretty big anes——”
Duncan was interrupted by the waiter enquiring if he’d take
plum-pudding or rice pudding.
“Weel,” he said, “Ah’m no a beggarin’ Chinaman. I’ll hae a lump o’
ye’re plum-puddin’.”
Peter said he’d have some rice pudding.
“By cripes!” Duncan said, staring solemnly at Peter, “ye’ll hae tae eat
it wi’ twa lang sticks!”
Peter’s eye started to dance with painful apprehension, and he gasped:
“Eh?”
“Ye will that, Peter!” and the solemnity of Duncan’s face increased the
other’s feelings of apprehension.
“Oh, here; heigh! heigh!” Peter called to the departing waiter, “I’ll
have plum-pudding, too!”
Duncan laughed inwardly at the simplicity of Peter.
“I don’t want any of their sticks,” Peter growled in a determined sort
of way.
“It’s a gude job ye had me wi’ ye, Peter,” Duncan said, slyly, “or ye
wad hae had them, though!”
Peter agreed that it was.
Luncheon over the three were ready to leave.
“That adds a big lump tae th’ expense o’ my trip doon here, Dashwood,”
Duncan said, with a sorrowful look on his face as he regarded his
damaged hat reflectively.
“But hadn’t yow better make haste an’ buy anoother yun,” replied old
John, “yow might as well go bare head as wear that!”
Duncan thought hard for a while.
“Ah’ll telt ye what Ah’ll dae, Dashwood,” he said, with a roguish look
in his eye, “Ah’ll toss ye tae see whither ye pey for th’ three dinners
or buy me a new hat,” and he took out a silver coin and began spinning
it in the air.
Old John was in sporting humour. “Spin yow th’ coin, then,” he said.
“Wha’ ever wins takes th’ choice,” Duncan explained, as he twirled the
coin.
“Heads!” cried old John excitedly.
“Gosh, no! it’s a bloomin’ tail!” shouted Duncan, securing the coin
again. “Ye’ve tae buy me a new hat, Dashwood.”
Peter laughed and jeered at his parent for having lost.
Old John accepted the verdict in silence.
Duncan paid three shillings in settlement of the bill of fare, and off
they trooped into the street again.
“By crikey!” Duncan said, as they approached a draper’s shop, “that’s
the first time I ever won a wager!”
A few steps further on and a shopman in a long-tailed coat greeted them
as lost brothers.
Old John acted as spokesman.
“This way, sir,” and the shopman led the way past piles of drapery and
goods of all descriptions to a small counter at the far end of the
building, where he introduced old John to a pale, youthful counter-hand.
McClure and Peter loitered in the rear, examining the general display.
“Listen here, lad,” old John whispered hoarsely to the pale, youthful
counter-hand, “Ah only wants a shellin’ hat. I don’t want any other
kahnd!”
“About what size, sir?”
“The biggest yow can get. It’s to fit mah friend comin’ along there,”
and he pointed down the floor to the burly McClure.
“We have a line of shilling hats, sir,” said the counter-hand, “but I
couldn’t recommend them. If——”
“It doesn’t matter what they be lahke so long as they’re only a
shellin’,” old John interrupted eagerly.
[Illustration: DUNCAN APPROVES.]
The counter-jumper went away and returned with a pile of flimsy felt
hats and stacked them on the counter.
Old John beckoned Duncan forward.
Duncan breasted the counter and breathed heavily on the display of
head-gear.
“Now, dinna ye buy anything that’s rreal dear, Dashwood,” he said, as
though his conscience was smiting him.
Old John winked at the counter-hand. The counter-hand seemed to sum up
the situation, and assured Duncan that “they were a very reasonable
line.”
Duncan selected one from the pile, and, removing his own, fitted it on
his head.
“By crikey!” he said, “th’ vera first fits me like a glove.”
“And it suits yower complexion,” old John remarked.
“There’s a glass there, sir,” from the counter-hand.
Duncan turned and surveyed himself from head to toe in a large mirror.
“Crikey!” he remarked philosophically, “I never thocht I was sae fat
as that.” Then, as he straightened the hat and pulled it well over his
ears. “This one’ll do gran’ if it’s nae costin’ a lot o’ money.”
“I don’t think you’ll find it too dear, sir,” the counter-hand said
reassuringly.
“Oh, Ah have na got tae pay for it,” Duncan said, with a pleased laugh.
“I won it i’ a toss.”
Old John winked at Peter. Peter had a vague sort of idea that there
was a joke lurking somewhere about his parent, but he couldn’t exactly
locate it.
“Is there anything else, sir?” asked the counter-hand, as he handed old
John a slip for the amount of his purchase.
“Ye’ll get nae mair oot o’ him th’ day,” Duncan informed the shopman,
with a chuckle.
The counter-hand smiled and bowed, and his custom departed.
When they reached the street, Duncan said:
“I don’t want tae be too harrd on ye, Dashwood; an’ sae as tae make
things a little bit even I think th’ three o’ us’ll gang an’ hae a
drink o’ something.”
Old John consented, and the three of them marched into the nearest
hotel and drank eighteenpennorth, for which Duncan promptly paid.
“That clears ma conscience a bit anyway,” Duncan said, with a feeling
of satisfaction, as they reached the street again.
Old John winked at Peter, and Peter felt more mysterious than ever as
to the whereabouts of the suspected joke.
“Weel, noo,” McClure said, “I’ve got a lot o’ things tae look after
yet, sae I hae’d better gang awa’. I’ll call roon’ though sometime and
see ye a’ at yer pub.”
“Well, yow had better take this with yow,” old John said, handing
Duncan the shopman’s slip for the price of the hat.
“Oh, by crikey, yes,” Duncan said, putting the slip into his vest
pocket. “It’ll do when I get hame tae show th’ wife hoo I got th’ best
o’ auld John Dashwood,” and off Duncan wobbled along the street.
“Hoh! hoh! hoh! Hoh! hoh-h-h!” laughed old John as he and Peter went
off the other way. “Do you know how much Ah paid for the hat, lad?”
Peter hadn’t the slightest idea.
“A _shellin’_!”
“Hah! hah! hah! Hah! hah!” and Peter jumped about and slapped himself
on the knee and attracted the attention of the police and passers-by.
“By George it takes you, father! It takes you! I knew you had something
on!”
CHAPTER VII.
James and Peter attend Church.
Sunday.
Old John, Granny, Mrs. Dashwood and the girls had accepted an
invitation to tea and to spend the evening in the suburbs. James and
Peter were alone at the hotel. They moped about all the afternoon, and
time hung heavily on their hands. After tea they retired to their room
and moped more. For want of something better to do James turned his
pockets out and counted his money.
“That’s all I’ve got left of my lot,” he said, producing a half
sovereign and two sixpenny pieces.
Peter chuckled and said it was more than he had. “I’ve none at all,” he
added, “unless I can get some more out of father!”
James doubted Peter’s chances of raising any more funds from his
parent, giving as a reason, that “father was buying a traction engine
to-morrow!”
“Well, lend us five bob of yours?” Peter said.
James smiled and returned the money to his pocket James had lent Peter
“five bob” before.
They lay across their beds and stared at the ceiling. After a while
James said:
“Suppose we go to church somewhere?”
“Anywhere you like,” Peter answered, with a chuckle, and off they went.
Out in the street James paused and said:
“Well, where are we going—to what church?”
“The Scotch church,” Peter answered. Peter had an idea that the Scotch
church was better than other churches. Peter held curious ideas about
churches.
“Well, it’s down this street and up the next,” James said, leading the
way.
“Are you going to walk there?” Peter asked in surprise.
“And back, too,” James answered, “unless you’re going to pay for the
tram.”
Peter laughed. He also walked.
Presently they were approaching the sacred edifice. They could see the
lights in every window. The bell was tolling in their ears.
At the large gates guarding the entrance they paused a while and held a
silent consultation.
“Well, what do you think?” James said. James’s spiritual courage was
dwindling.
Peter glanced at the imposing-looking building and chuckled. “I dunno,”
he answered, “perhaps we had better let it rip and come some other
evening.”
James glanced wonderingly toward the open door, then up at the sky to
see if there was any signs of rain. But it was a bright night, without
a cloud in sight.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled doubtfully, “perhaps we had better go in
now that we’ve come so far.”
The last of the congregation passed in.
James and Peter sauntered closer to the door. They posted themselves,
one each side it, and took observations. They could see the interior
of the building ablaze with light. They could see the draped pulpit.
They could see the great organ. They could see a sea of heads packed
together, like sheep in a yard.
The last bell rang dolefully.
“Well,” James whispered, “what do y’ think?”
Peter thought the place was full.
James said he could see an empty seat “on the right.”
There was a brief silence.
“Well, you go first,” Peter suggested, “and I’ll follow. Ha! ha!”
“_Sh-h-h!_” from James. Peter’s mirth sounded like sacrilege to James.
Peter craned his neck to locate the empty seat that James had in view.
He drew back and said he “couldn’t see it,” but he “could see a
Chinaman.”
James shook his fist threateningly at Peter.
“Well, go on,” Peter said, with a grin.
James almost took a step forward, but halted in the middle of it. Peter
stifled a laugh. James scowled at him.
The organ started to play low and soft. James glanced wistfully back
at the street, but only moths and night flies, fluttering round a dim
gas-lamp, were there. Then he glanced interrogatingly at Peter. Peter
glanced at James.
Suddenly the organ burst into loud thundering peals that startled them.
James couldn’t stand any more. He gripped his hat firmly in his fist
and took the fatal step. In long, quick strides he set out for that
empty seat. Peter started after him, taking even larger strides
and tramping on James’s heels, and attracting the attention of the
congregation Peter thought James would never arrive at that empty seat.
It seemed more than a mile away. But James reached it at last and
dropped with all his weight into it. Peter dropped on James. It was a
swell seat, too—covered with a luxurious cushion. They both breathed
hard, and stared silently and strangely about. On a card let into the
cedar panel before them was the name of the Premier of the State.
Their eyes rested on the name, then they looked meaningly at each other
and thought hard. An ugly suspicion that they were trespassing crept
all over them and made them go cold.
Several moments of heavy suspense passed. Then a venerable churchwarden
glided down the aisle and hovered over them. His long, grey whiskers
fell about their necks. They both thought their hour had come. The
ancient warden whispered things to them through his hands, and pointed
with his thumb to the rear of the church. But he might as well have
talked to them on his fingers. They didn’t understand.
At last he gave them up and retired to consult with a brother official.
A broad man with a red face and a double chin and a heavy gold chain
linked across his stomach, carrying a kid glove and a walking stick
in his hand, closely followed by a tall lady, covered with finery and
perfume, paused at the seat James and Peter had “jumped,” and glared
at them. It was a trying moment for James and Peter. They “shoved up,”
and crouched together till they resembled compressed fodder. The lady
clutched her skirts in her hand and hesitatingly sat down beside Peter.
The burly Premier, glaring at the occupants of his “reserved” seat, sat
with a series of grunts.
The lady opened a large fan and talked behind the battlements of it to
her Premier husband.
James and Peter heard her say: “Outrageous!” and “all sorts of people!”
and it made them feel faint.
A moment later the parson appeared, and the service commenced. It
commenced with a hymn. The congregation stood to it. So did James and
Peter—stood like fools, for they were unprovided with “hymnaries.”
Not that this made any difference to the singing. But in the absence
of “Sankey” they felt that the eyes of the congregation were all
upon them. Suddenly the gloved hand of a lady in the seat behind
thrust an open book under their nose. Her thoughtfulness went near to
ending their lives. That all the eyes of the congregation _were_ upon
them now they had no doubt. Peter wished James had been seized with
appendicitis before he started to induce him to go to that church.
James mechanically reached for the book, and holding it upside down,
nudged Peter to join with him in song. Peter responded in a series of
hysterical laughs, which were drowned by the voices around him. All
the same that hymn-book helped them on a long way. It made them feel a
little at home, and more like the rest of the congregation.
* * * * *
The parson rose and preached his sermon. It must have been a good
sermon. No one disagreed with it. There was not a solitary dissenting
voice. When he concluded his “third part” and sat down, a mild
commotion set in away at the rear of the church. Several church
officials left their places and moved about the aisles. The organ
played again. James and Peter wondered what was going to happen. A coin
dropped on the floor and rolled round on a solemn excursion of its own.
Some more started to jingle in a plate; then they fell thicker and
thicker. A collection! Peter’s heart gave a jump. He became uneasy.
The Premier’s wife took out a purse and rattled the contents. Peter
remembered seeing “escape door” printed up on the walls of the theatre.
He looked round to see if there was one in the church. There wasn’t.
By the ring of the silver Peter knew the plate was coming nearer and
nearer. He began to perspire. James dug his hand down into his trouser
pockets. Peter glanced pleadingly at him.
“I’ve two sixpences,” James whispered, and pressed his hand against
Peter’s. Peter clutched at the proffered coin and nearly took a joint
of one of James’s fingers with it.
The plate arrived. Peter planked his piece on top of the pile. It gave
the man behind the plate a surprise. It gave Peter one, too; and it
nearly took James’s breath away. It was a gold-piece—James’s only _half
sovereign_.
The Premier and his wife seemed to take a different view of Peter.
They looked as though they would be pleased to know him. Peter,
himself, suddenly felt on an equality with them. He sat up straight,
and his eyes gleamed with the light and consciousness of wealth and
philanthropy. But James felt different to Peter. A heavy, sinking
feeling seemed to come over him. His teeth rattled, and he dug his
finger nails into Peter’s thigh. But Peter only listened to the organ.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH COLLECTION.]
The benediction pronounced, and the congregation rose and started to
file out. James and Peter were almost last to leave.
At the door the man who took up the collection was waiting with
beaming countenance. He shook hands with Peter, and enquired if he was
a stranger. Peter said he was, and told him where he came from. The
churchman said nothing to James.
He shook hands with Peter again, and hoped to see him become a regular
attendant at the services. Peter smiled and hurried after James. They
passed out the gate and walked through the streets for about a mile
before James spoke.
At last he looked at Peter, and said:
“Of course I only lent you that half sovereign, remember!”
“Hah! hah! hah! Hah! hah! hah-h-h!” came loudly from Peter. And a
solitary policeman standing on the opposite side of the street stared
wonderingly across.
CHAPTER VIII.
In the Public Domain.
Sunday again. The whole family rambling through the great public
park. Mrs. Dashwood and the girls in heaven amongst the panoply of
flowers, ferns, artistic nooks, and bowers and shapely shaven lawns.
They dragged old John here, there, and everywhere, around this bed,
down that path, and from hill-top to water’s edge. They searched for
historical spots and monuments, for sights they had heard others talk
of, and for sights they had never heard of at all.
Peter and James struck out on their own account. Flowers and ferns,
with a gloomy weather-worn old monument or two thrown in, were not in
their line. They became interested in the forms and types of humanity
that were around them. And such forms, such types! Verily, it were
as though all the freaks and misfortunes of nature had been gathered
together from all parts of the earth and emptied into that domain. The
blind, the stunted, the lame, the halt, the limbless, the lungless, the
hopeless, the homeless, all were in evidence there. On every hand, at
every turn, they were crouched beneath the spreading trees, unnoticed
by the hordes of leisure seekers, as unregarded by the world in general
as though they had never lived.
Aged and decrepid pensioners hobbled feebly about on sticks; careless
nurse-girls, with other peoples’ infants hanging anyhow in their arms,
loitered around; girlish wives, with boyish husbands at their sides,
pushed the precious first-born along in its new gorgeous perambulator;
crowds of merry children, let loose for the day, romped riotously
over everything. From improvised platforms stump-orators shouted
themselves hoarse for the benefit of jeering, cheering crowds that
out of curiosity assembled to hear their mouthsport. Cricket pitches,
tennis courts, and bowling greens were in full play. And as interested
spectators of the latter James and Peter, in the course of an hour or
so, found themselves seated at the butt of a large shade tree.
The rinks were sprinkled with tottering old grey-beards and
grandfathers, big-bingied, stiff-backed old fogies who did nothing all
the week but smoke cigars and pose as “leading citizens.” There were a
hundred or more of him in short sleeves and flannels, and a faithful
portrait of any one of him would have been a valuable asset in the days
of the humorous valentine.
What the game was all about or what constituted the skill of it or
what didn’t, James and Peter hadn’t the remotest idea, but they saw
great fun in it, and sometimes laughed till they nearly hurt themselves.
“Look, look at the old cove in the middle, with the braces; watch
_him_!” Peter cried, tugging hysterically at James.
James fixed his gaze on that “old cove” and followed his movements
closely.
The “old cove,” with one withered hand supporting the bowl, the other
pressed against his left hip, bent down, carefully and cautiously,
till he was almost sitting or lying on the lawn. A blatant, breathless
sort of individual of the larrikin class, standing in the vicinity of
James and Peter, groaned a loud, satirical groan, in the interests of
the feeble bowler, that added to the enjoyment of our two friends.
They turned their attention to the larrikin. Delighted to find he was
affording amusement to some one he lifted his voice a note or two
higher and called: “Now, then, _Spofforth_!”
The hoary bowler bent some more, and, satisfied that his feet had a
grip of the earth, and that his sight was correct, slowly extended the
bowl to arm’s length.
“Now, then! ah-h!” bellowed the larrikin, and James and Peter broke
into fresh merriment.
[Illustration: “NOW, THEN SPOFFORTH!”]
But the warrior didn’t deliver the bowl just then; he drew his hand
back again until the bowl touched his side, then once more he pushed
it to arm’s length, and for several moments repeated these movements
until he seemed to be imitating a man with a saw. Finally the bowl slid
from his palm and started off on a peaceful rolling excursion down the
rink. As it travelled the old cove’s arms went out each side of him,
his chin went forward, his eyes started to jump out of his head. The
bowl started to deviate to the right. The aged sportsman resorted to
will-power to guide it. He hung over his left side and strained all his
shrunken sinews to haul that bowl to leeward. Instead of responding
the bowl started to show symptoms of spent energy before it had
travelled half way down the rink. It got down to snail pace and began
to flounder. The old cove worked his head and hands up and down like a
pump and “hooshed” it. The bowl wobbled, then made one more revolution
and stubbornly lay down on the green and sulked. The old cove spun
stiffly round on one leg and, in a hollow, broken voice, shouted:
“Ech! damn it a’!”
“Hoh! hoh! hoh! Poor old Daddy Christmas!” cried the larrikin,
sympathetically, and, swinging round, walked abruptly away. James and
Peter, having had their fill of excitement, followed his example.
“Well, I dunno!” James murmured, coming to a standstill, after they had
explored the great park from end to end, “but it beats me where they
can have got to!”
Peter, with tears in his eyes, gazed about like one abandoned to the
heartlessness of the cruel world, and whined: “I’d know them if I saw
them, though, by Maria’s red dress!”
They moved on, and strolled round the base of a drowsy old monument
that never got tired of standing in the one place on the brow of a
hill. Numbers of people of all kinds were lounging round, reading
newspapers and feasting on fruit in the vicinity of that monument.
James and Peter scanned the faces of them all, but no! there was no
father, no mother, no Polly, no Tilly amongst them!
They were in the act of abandoning the search and returning to the
hotel when Peter’s eyes suddenly lit up like the morning star, and he
uttered a short, happy laugh.
“There they are! Ha! ha!” he said, pointing to a red dress, amongst a
number of others, on a long rustic seat, and off he scampered. James
followed him slowly. James always took his joy calmly, and suppressed
all symptoms of excitement. Besides, James wasn’t so confident about
the discovery as Peter. But Peter’s assurance increased as the distance
between himself and the objects of his sudden happiness was reduced.
Once he glanced round to see if James was following, then raced on
again.
[Illustration: “GUESS WHO!”]
The female in the red dress sat with her back to Peter, so did her
companions. They were talking about the next Government House Ball,
and the lady in red had just remarked that she “was afraid Sir Thomas
would be leaving for Japan,” when Peter, stealing up on tip-toe, and
smiling like a picture, blindfolded her with his hot, clammy hands,
and held her back hair firmly against his manly bosom. The lady gasped
and strained and tried to rise, but Peter had a firm grip of her. Her
friends on either side turned their heads and glanced up curiously
at Peter. Peter, still smiling, glanced down at them. But instead
of encountering the eyes of Polly and Tilly he beheld the faces of
two absolute strangers. Peter nearly dropped dead. He staggered back
several yards. He was still staggering when the outraged one, finding
her feet, demanded to know why “he dared lay hand on her?”
“Call a policeman, Lady Fitzsmith!” one of her companions, both of whom
were now facing Peter, excitedly advised.
Peter didn’t wait for any more. He bolted, and didn’t draw breath
or look round till he reached the iron gates opening on to the busy
street. There he waited until James came up. James, who had also deemed
it advisable to run, came up with perspiration and a scowl on his face.
“Well, you are an idiot of a fellow,” he said, “an awful d— idiot!”
Peter sparred for wind, then gasped:
“By—by Jove, I thought she was” (puff) “_Maria_, didn’t you?”
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
CHAPTER IX.
Peter in the Breakers.
Since arriving in the metropolis the family had witnessed many scenes
and sights that had filled them with wonder and surprise, but when
they stepped from the jangling tram-car to the great sand beach by the
sea and beheld the mixed mass of humorously-clad humanity plunging and
flopping in the roaring, rolling breakers, the limit was reached.
“Dear, oh dear! oh dear!” Mrs. Dashwood gasped, “just look at the
women!”
Polly and Tilly giggled. Old John and James and Peter stared hard, then
burst into laughter.
So that visitors might study and enjoy the awful sights that rolled
and stalked about the sand an enterprising management had furnished
the beach with chairs at a penny a time. Old John took ten pennorth of
chairs, and secured positions of advantage in the front row. Then the
eyes of the family began to roam over the scene before them.
And such a scene! Such a display of bare arms, bare necks, bare
legs! Such a hideous exhibition of ill-shaped humanity! Such clumsy,
clothes-bag corporations! Such crooked trunks and winding limbs! Such
a galaxy of fat, flabby women of forty! Such a multitude of thin,
skinny women of fifteen and fifty! And such odd women, with no chests,
and legs rolling with fat to the ankles! Verily it was a great sight,
worthy of a great city. It seemed as though nature were out for the
day, as though she were holding a grand parade, a parade of all her
best jokes, her most humorous works of art!
And as the mellow, moaning breakers rolled in on the heels of each
other, flinging and flashing flakes of froth and foam before them, the
bathers were tossed sportively about on the crests like so many scraps
of cork.
Now and again a large female would be lifted off her legs and thrown
into the arms of some frail, bald-headed old fool, who, in his
excitement, had forgotten to remove his spectacles when undressing, and
together they would turn turtle to the great delight of the spectators.
A broad-backed man, with a heavy stomach and bow legs, arrayed in a
suggestion of blue short pants and a handkerchief, crawled out of the
water and stood with his back obscuring the view of our friends. There
was sand in his hair and his ears. The salt water trickling down his
hairy back dripped off him on to the sand. The Dashwoods looked at
each other, then blushed and laughed. This man was the mayor of the
great city, but he might just as well have been one of the council
cart-horses for all the notice that was taken of him.
Mrs. Dashwood voiced a desire to return to the city; but old John
opposed the proposition. Old John was beginning to see the fun of
surf-bathing. So was Peter.
“By Jove, I don’t know,” Peter said enthusiastically, “I wouldn’t mind
having a dip in it. Will you come in, father?”
“Go on with you, boy!” Mrs. Dashwood interposed, “your father would
never be so stupid.”
“Well, now, Ah bain’t be sure,” old John put in, with a short laugh.
“Everyone be agoin’ in, an’ Ah thenks it’s good for yow.”
Tilly took alarm.
“Oh, father’s going in, too!” she said to Polly, with a look of horror.
“He’s _not_!” sceptically from Polly. Polly was sure her parent would
never do anything that would lower the family pride.
“Well, only for the baby,” Maria said bluntly, “I’d go in myself. I
don’t see where the harm comes in so long as you have got something on.”
At this Polly and Tilly tittered, and Mrs. Dashwood said: “_Maria!_”
But Maria was prepared to argue the matter.
“Now, what’s wrong about it?” she insisted, turning to her mother.
“There bain’t be nothin’,” old John put in, “an’ Ah’ll go wi’ yow,
lad,” he added, addressing Peter.
Peter jumped at the suggestion.
“Come on, then, father,” he said, and off they went to join the throng
of fresh arrivals that were crowding into the paling yards which served
for dressing-rooms.
They were absent for quite a while.
At intervals Mrs. Dashwood and the girls would glance nervously around
to see if old John really meant to join the surf-bathers.
Eventually old John and Peter appeared, garbed like a pair of circus
clowns. Stepping tenderly over the pebbles in their bare feet they
advanced to the water’s edge. Old John, with his ponderous corporation
covered with red, his long, hairy arms dangling about, and his long
feet poking out before him, formed an interesting addition to the many
humorous surf sights. Peter, in blue pants that were mostly trunk,
might, at a distance, have passed for a girl.
At sight of them Mrs. Dashwood felt the family virtue had gone for ever.
“I never thought they could be such fools!” she moaned plaintively.
“I don’t think they’re fools!” Maria growled stubbornly. “Do you,
James?” she asked of her staid brother.
But James didn’t know what to think. He could only stare and chuckle.
“Good gracious me!” Tilly murmured, as she felt cause for fresh alarm,
“I do hope they won’t come over here, near us.”
“Well, _I_ won’t stay if they do,” and Polly glanced along the crowded
beach.
Old John and Peter took boldly to the water. They paddled through the
shallow parts, one behind the other, like King Sandy and his gin out
ration-hunting. The tail-end of a wave flew up at their heads. It was a
cold tail-end. They gasped, and laughed and pranced about. They waded
further, until the water rose above their knees, then anchored awhile.
And while Peter scooped up fistsful of brine to wet his head as a
protection again sunstroke, old John gave his whiskers a drenching, and
adjusted his red garment, which showed an inclination to part company
with him. Both looked back at their friends on shore and waved.
“Don’t notice them!” Mrs. Dashwood advised.
“Pretend you don’t see them!” Tilly added.
But Maria’s heart was with the surf-bathers. She took out her
handkerchief and waved back, and waved again, until the front seats
resembled a flag station. Then, elevating her infant in her arms, she
called upon it to gaze afar out upon “grandfather.” People sitting near
her smiled and turned their eyes upon the attractive form of old John.
Old John and Peter ventured some more. The water was now up to their
waist. A great wave came breaking in, bearing back to shore scores of
bathers on its bosom. Quite a column of them were shooting straight for
old John. John saw the breaker coming. He put out his chest and stood
to it bravely. The breaker struck him, and the head of a flying female
struck him too. It bunted him in the stomach and knocked him back. Like
a sunken ship old John went down in three feet of water. At the same
time, though, his hands went out like grappling-irons. They gripped
the offending female and dragged her under also. Then for a moment two
pairs of unevenly balanced legs were seen walloping the surface water
into foam and fury, just as though two monsters of the deep were there
engaged in deadly combat. The half-smothered female came to the surface
first, and, with a gurgle and a splutter and an hysterical squeal,
floundered off in pursuit of her friends. Then up rose old John like
a whale, and, discharging quite a cargo of salt water, dragged at his
whiskers and joyfully roared his appreciation of the rough-and-tumble.
The spectators joined with him in his merriment. The more they saw of
old John the more they enjoyed him, and so as no mistakes would be
made when they were pointing him out to each other they designated him
“whiskers” and “old red-skin.” Some others who had overheard Maria
familiarly referred to him as “grandfather.”
At intervals Polly and Tilly would glance round to see what like those
people were who would make _their_ parent a butt for jokes. In fact,
they became very uneasy, and as a way out of the predicament Tilly
suggested they all take a walk along the beach. But receiving no
encouragement from the others she contented herself through the few
remaining miserable moments by prodding the sand at her feet with the
point of her parasol.
Encouraged by the example of experienced bathers around him, Peter
set his mind upon swimming out to meet the breakers. He swam out. In
fresh water creeks Peter was a fair swimmer; amongst the breakers,
of course, he was a fool. Peter swam out further than the boldest of
them. Then he attracted notice. A chorus of voices called warningly
to him. He rounded and turned his head for shore again. Then suddenly
something went wrong. He struggled, and splashed, but made no headway.
He lost ground. The angry sea was carrying him out, bearing him off
another victim! Peter yelled. A hundred others yelled. All hit out
hurriedly for shore till all that could be seen in the surf was Peter’s
black head bobbing about afar out. The alarm went up and down the
beach. Everyone rushed to the same spot, and the crowd thickened and
thickened. The spectators stood upon the chairs.
“It’s _Peter_!” Tilly shrieked.
“Oh, my God!” and Mrs. Dashwood fainted into the arms of James. Then
lusty cries of “_Marcee! Marcee!_” rang out, and were echoed all
around. The stalwart, sinewy, scarred form of the hero of a hundred
rescues, life-line in hand, eyes open wide, nostrils distended, raced
from the dressing-room and took to the water. The crowd watched
silently, breathlessly. Out forged Marcee, arm over arm. Nearer and
nearer he drew to Peter. Still not a murmur from the multitude on the
beach. The dropping of a pin on the sand would have made a big dint in
the silence. Then, like a clap of thunder the break came. “_He’s got
him!_” burst on the air like the belching of twenty thousand guns. For
just a moment Marcee and Peter seemed to grapple with each other. Then
the iron-like fist of Marcee was uplifted and Peter received the punch
of his life on the head.
“It was to stun him so as he wouldn’t hold me!” Marcee explained
afterwards.
* * * * *
[Illustration: IN THE BREAKERS.]
When Peter came to again he was lying in a hotel by the beach, and
a doctor in bathing costume, and the whole family and a number of
sympathetic old women, were watching over him.
“Why—what th’ deuce are you all doing, eh? Is it dinner-time? What?”
and Peter stared strangely about.
Then Mrs. Dashwood fell on his neck and shed tears all over him and
called him her “darling boy.”
Old John, who had been bellowing like a pen of bull calves, threw his
arms round the doctor.
“He’ll be all right now,” the latter said, with a smile, and went off
to the beach again.
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
CHAPTER X.
Home Again.
A fortnight since the family, weary and dusty, with all the parcels,
bundles and battered baggage, arrived home at the farm. A fortnight!
And that holiday still fresh and green and going strong! The trip to
the city was thought of, talked of, laughed over, morning, noon and
night. Incidents were recalled, re-enacted and served up at breakfast,
dinner and tea. Friends who called at the home to welcome the family
back were treated to the minutest detail of the things that happened.
They heard it all from Mrs. Dashwood, from Tilly and Polly and from old
John; heard it from them severally; heard it from them jointly; heard
it from them backwards; heard it from them frontwards; heard it from
them endwards and sidewards. It was a great holiday—the greatest of
all holidays—that holiday of the Dashwoods. It was excelled only, if
excelled at all, by Noah and his ark and all his animals.
But the trip did the family some visible good. It worked wonders in
their methods, and gave a universal aspect to their outlook.
And upon none was the influence more marked than upon Peter. Peter
showed reform in his very walk, in the cut of his hair, in the shape of
his boots, in the odour and quality of his pocket handkerchiefs, and in
the wonderful variety of tooth-brushes and razors that now adorned his
bedroom. But it was the distinct and complete change in his studious
pursuits that rendered the reformation of Peter complete. Ambition set
in strong upon him. He hungered for fame. In his heart he secretly
longed to do something that would put all the great minds of the world
in the shade.
Peter turned his attention to invention.
Once, for about six months, while it was new, Peter rode a bicycle with
tremendous enthusiasm, but, tiring of the toy, which cost old John
fifteen guineas, discarded it in favour of a mule that arrived on the
farm, and hung the wheels up on the walls of the barn to harbour vermin.
Peter’s attention now reverted to that bicycle. Acting upon an
inspiration which came to him in the city, he locked himself in the
barn along with that bicycle and worked hard and mysteriously upon it
for many weeks. But what service it was that Peter hoped to render
humanity and the world _per_ medium of said bike no one had any idea.
Whether he had any himself or not remains to be seen.
“Goodness only knows,” James sniggered, in answer to his sisters one
day upon the matter, “I don’t think he knows himself. A new sort of
life buoy, perhaps, to take with him the next time he goes for a swim
in the breakers!”
The peals of laughter that came from the sisters reached the ears of
Peter. He threw open the door of the barn and thrusting out his head
enquired the cause of their mirth.
“Oh, something good, Peter!” from Tilly.
“They’re laughing at this invention of yours,” James said, with a grin.
“By Jove, then,” Peter answered, in a self-satisfied sort of way, “it’s
all right. It’s finished now, and I’m just going out to give her a
trial!”
The girls threatened to go off their heads with joy. They ran inside
for their hats, and loudly proclaimed Peter’s announcement to their
parents. “The great invention is finished!” they cried. “Come and see
it working.”
The parents, grinning broadly, came and saw.
Old McMurdy and his wife, passing in a sulky, pulled up at James’s
invitation and waited near the gate to witness the unveiling of the
miracle.
They hadn’t long to wait. The barn door opened wide again and Peter,
with the bicycle rigged in full canvas like a sailing boat, appeared.
His appearance was greeted with loud merriment.
But the mirth didn’t disconcert Peter.
“Wait till you see her going!” he said, with a grin.
James, who had laughed least of any, suddenly evinced an interest
in the invention. He stepped forward and held its head while Peter
re-adjusted the setting and rigging.
When a number of small things were attended to Peter mounted, and,
seating himself somewhere between the lower topsail and the flying
jib, invited James to give the brig a shove off. James shoved her, and
Peter, grinning, peddled cautiously to keep her balanced. Suddenly a
gust of wind came up and, catching in the topmast staysail, the craft
made a lurch to leave port per the open gate-way.
“Hah! hah! hah! h——” roared old McMurdy from the seat of the sulky, but
his mirth was short-lived. It was the first time his sulky horse had
set eyes on a sailing craft, and it reared, then flew round and bolted
up the road as though suddenly possessed of several devils.
When the brig cleared port and arrived in the middle of the road-way
it stopped and languished for want of wind. The sails started to flap
uselessly, and Peter had to pedal hard to keep her afloat.
Fresh merriment and jeers came from the family. But Peter propelled
assiduously with his feet, and worked his passage for about fifty
yards. Then a change came over the weather conditions. Up sprang a
breeze with some life and devil in it. It filled the flapping sails
till they looked like balloons, and hurried the barque off up the road
at full speed. Peter’s bosom filled with joy. He felt he had achieved
a triumph. He was sure he had conquered the world. Raising his legs he
rested them on the handle-bars as he whirled along. Peter believed in
taking success calmly and contentedly. Talk about ploughing the deep
and the main! Peter was ploughing the main stock route.
As she glided and wobbled along, the craft looked a strange quadruped.
Terence Blaises, a Justice of the Peace, who had just turned in at his
slip-rails, with a cart of empty milk-cans from the factory, observed
the strange white object floating calmly up over the horizon. Terence
put up the rails and, leaning both arms on them, waited wonderingly.
“Now, what th’ divil is it at all?” he murmured, as the brig came
rattling and “swishing” along in the wind. But the banging of milk-cans
in the rear caused Terence to jump round quickly and shout: “Woa, boy!
woa!” The horse didn’t “woa” worth considering. It flashed its glaring
mongrel eye upon the craft, then off, knocking down trees and throwing
empty milk-cans at the clouds. Terence pursued him till he fell over
a milk-can, and gave up. He looked back pathetically at the sailing
craft. The sails dipped and ducked as though saluting Terence in
passing, but further than that no communication passed between him and
Peter.
Successfully negotiating a corner in the road without going to pieces,
Peter set sail for the township. The township was situated in the
middle of a great plain. It sat, simmering there like a steak on a
grid-iron. The road to it was level, and as good as could be expected
from the average Australian Shire Council. There were numerous
deformities along it, of course, many of which bore evidence of the
Council’s intention to wipe them out some day. In fact, like the road
to hell, the township road was paved with good intentions.
A fair wind and a nowing sail drove the barque over the rolling plain
in gallant style.
A mile or so ahead a hooded gig, drawn by a sleepy rheumatic steed,
hove in sight. It was the township lawyer making for his branch
office, the local store at the next railway station, where, amongst
the rock-salt and empty crockery cases, as per advertisement in the
_Settler_, he journeyed bi-weekly to consult with farmers and dairymen
having grievances, and to lead them into trials and tribulation for
a modest fee. A few moments more and the distance between the brig
and the gig was reduced to chains. Then the sleepy, rheumatic steed,
suddenly waking up, stopped dead and stared like a brumby for the
first time looking at a wind-mill. The craft came on like a great
white eagle. The township lawyer, to satisfy himself it was not a
hallucination, popped on his gold-rim glasses and eyed the advancing
brig closely. He gave a short chuckle. He raised a hand and was about
to hail the captain to enquire the name of the vessel when that
rheumatic steed gave one decisive snort, and, swinging round, flew
like the wind for the township. The lawyer’s hat came off and flew out
the back way; then his glasses followed. The barque rode tranquilly
over the lost apparel. For about a mile Peter kept just behind that
flying quadruped; and whenever the lawyer got a pull on, and the animal
seemed inclined to reason with the bit, the “swish” of the barque in
the breeze would put fresh terror into the brute, and away he would go
again.
“D—n you!” the lawyer shouted, but his blasphemy didn’t reach Peter.
Then for fully three miles, until a cross road afforded a haven of
safety, that lawyer was driven before Peter like Cain flying before
Jehovah.
Having lost so much ground, the lawyer abandoned his mission and
decided to return to the township, permitting his steed to jog along at
a safe distance behind the offending craft.
[Illustration: PETER’S LATEST.]
With a full sail, and the mast dipping and bobbing as the brig rode
over the hills and hollows in the ill-formed street, Peter started
to enter the township. No band played; no chorus of voices sang the
“Conquering ’Ero”; there was nothing to greet or cheer Peter. But
there must have been as many as fifty horses standing calmly between
the shafts of vehicles outside the shops, and as many more fastened
to posts by their bridles. And Peter had not proceeded twenty yards
along that street when there wasn’t an animal in sight. They all became
obscured in a cloud of dust that was rolling out at the other end of
the township. And all that was to be seen in the street was a mob of
excited men and women, pieces of sulkies, broken lamp-posts and the
maimed and mangled remains of a Councillor, whom the Shire Clerk and
the newspaper editor were supporting in their arms.
“Don’t! Don’t hold her there!” Peter cried, when the rough hands of two
furious policemen seized hold of the sails of his craft. “You’ll spoil
her!”
“Phwat game is this?” yelled one of the bobbies, while the other,
seizing hold of Peter, hissed: “Yis ’ll paay fer me mahn, if yis ever
paid fer anythin’!”
Peter started to protest wildly. Peter was in trouble. But soon numbers
of friends had gathered round him.
The township lawyer, having arrived in good time, pushed himself
forward, and, planting a card in Peter’s hand, said:
“I’ve seen the whole thing; I’ll defend you.” Then the local
representatives of six banks jostled with each other for possession of
Peter’s ear.
“On deeds, or any security like that,” each of them said, “I can let
you have whatever you want.”
“Deeds!” growled the police, “there is his _deeds_!” and they pointed
scornfully to the maimed Councillor being borne off on a hurdle.
THE END.
Wholly set up and printed in Australia by John Sands Ltd., Sydney.
Transcriber’s Notes
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
The following are corrections to the original text:
Page Correction
---- -----------------------------------------------------------------
1 Opening single quote removed from (to be back at “Fairfield”).
10 Apostrophe added to (have a talk along wi’).
16 “adminster” changed to (inclined to administer a rebuke).
19 “he” changed to “be” (An’ I’d be huggin’ ’em).
20 Closing quote changed to double in (am I up against!” said).
23 Opening quote added to (“You won’t! By heavens you”).
32 “be” changed to “he” (wasn’t me, sir!” he blubbered,).
44 “squeeky” (sharp, squeaky voice).
47 “be” changed to “he” (At the door he paused).
48 “calmy” changed to (strolled in and calmly).
49 Closing quote and punctuation added to (“he’s going to shoot!”).
67 “resistence” changed to (resistance was useless).
70 “a” added to (a Waterbury, secured to his vest)
81 “imp” changed to (sunk in a limp heap).
99 Opening quote added to caption in (“Boots O!”).
101 “night-porter” hyphenated to match the rest of the text.
113 “Dashwod” changed to (ye rread th’ Bulletin, Dashwood?”).
119 Period added to caption in (Duncan Approves.)
120 Period added to (couldn’t exactly locate it.)
127 Opening quote changed to double in (“Sankey” they felt that).
149 Closing quote added to (“old red-skin.” Some others).
150 Period added to (of twenty thousand guns.)
151 Period added to caption in (In the Breakers.)
156 “peels” changed to (The peals of laughter).
159 “journey” changed to (he journeyed bi-weekly).
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