Chapter Twelve.
“Keep on Your Cap. I was once a Poor Man Myself.”
The voyage out was a long, even tedious one; but as it has but little bearing on the story I forbear to describe it at length.
The ship had a passenger for Madeira, parcels for Ascension and Saint Helena, and she lay in at the Cape for a whole week.
Here Captain Vesey left the vessel, bidding Archie a kind farewell, after dining with him at the Fountain, and roaming with him all over the charming Botanical Gardens.
“I’ve an idea we’ll meet again,” he said as he bade him adieu. “If God spares me, I’ll be sure to visit Sydney in a year or two, and I hope to find you doing well. You’ll know if my little yacht, the Barracouta, comes in, and I know you’ll come off and see me. I hope to find you with as good a coat on your back as you have now.”
Then the Dugong sailed away again; but the time now seemed longer to Archie than ever, for in Captain Vesey he really had lost a good friend—a friend who was all the more valuable because he spoke the plain, unvarnished truth; and if in doing so one or two of the young man’s cherished idols were brought tumbling down to the ground, it was all the better for the young man. It showed those idols had feet of clay, else a little cold water thrown over them would hardly have had such an effect. I am sorry to say, however, that no sooner had the captain left the ship, than Archie set about carefully collecting the pieces of those said idols and patching them up again.
“After all,” he thought to himself, “this Captain Vesey, jolly fellow as he is, never had to struggle with fortune as I shall do; and I don’t think he has the same pluck in him that my father has, and that people say I have. We’ll see, anyhow. Other fellows have been fortunate in a few years, why shouldn’t I? ‘In a few years?’ Yes, these are the very words Captain Vesey laughed at me for. ‘In a few years?’ To be sure. And why not? What is the good of a fortune to a fellow after he gets old, and all worn down with gout and rheumatism? ‘Cheer, boys, cheer;’ I’m going in to win.”
How slow the ship sailed now, apparently; and when it did blow it usually blew the wrong way, and she would have to stand off and on, or go tack and half-tack against it, like a man with one long leg and one short. But she was becalmed more than once, and this did seem dreadful. It put Archie in mind of a man going to sleep in the middle of his work, which is not at all the correct thing to do.
Well, there is nothing like a sailing ship after all for teaching one the virtue of patience; and at last Archie settled down to his sea life. He was becoming quite a sailor—as hard as the wheel-spokes, as brown as the binnacle. He was quite a favourite with the captain and officers, and with all hands fore and aft. Indeed he was very often in the forecastle or galley of an evening listening to the men’s yarns or songs, and sometimes singing a verse or two himself.
He was just beginning to think the Dugong was Vanderdecken’s ship, and that she never would make port at all, when one day at dinner he noticed that the captain was unusually cheerful.
“In four or five days more, please God,” said he, “we’ll be safe in Sydney.”
Archie almost wished he had not known this, for these four or five days were the longest of any he had yet passed. He had commenced to worship his patched-up idols again, and felt happier now, and more full of hope and certainty of fortune than he had done during the whole voyage.
Sometimes they sighted land. Once or twice birds flew on board—such bright, pretty birds too they looked. And birds also went wheeling and whirring about the ship—gulls, the like of which he had never seen before. They were more elegant in shape and purer in colour than ours, and their voices were clear and ringing.
Dick Whittington construed words out of the sound of the chiming bells. Therefore it is not at all wonderful that Archie was pleased to believe that some of these beautiful birds were screaming him a welcome to the land of gold.
Just at or near the end of the voyage half a gale of wind blew the ship considerably out of her course. Then the breeze went round to fair again, the sea went down, and the birds came back; and one afternoon a shout was heard from the foretop that made Archie’s heart jump for very joy.
“Land ho!”
That same evening, as the sun was setting behind the Blue Mountains, leaving a gorgeous splendour of cloud-scenery that may be equalled, but is never surpassed in any country, the Dugong sailed slowly into Sydney harbour, and cast anchor.
At last! Yes, at last. Here were the golden gates of the El Dorado that were to lead the ambitious boy to fortune, and all the pleasures fortune is capable of bestowing.
Archie had fancied that Sydney would prove to be a very beautiful place; but not in his wildest imaginings had he conjured up a scene of such surpassing loveliness as that which now lay before him, and around him as well.
On the town itself his eye naturally first rested. There it lay, miles upon miles of houses, towers, and steeples, spread out along the coast, and rising inland. The mountains and hills beyond, their rugged grandeur softened and subdued in the purple haze of the day’s dying glory; the sky above, with its shades of orange, saffron, crimson, opal, and grey; and the rocks, to right and left in the nearer distance, with their dreamy clouds of foliage, from which peeped many a lordly mansion, many a fairy-like palace. He hardly noticed the forests of masts; he was done with ships, done with masts, for a time at least; but his inmost heart responded to the distant hum of city life, that came gently stealing over the waters, mingling with the chime of evening bells, and the music of the happy sea-gulls.
Would he, could he, get on shore to-night? “No,” the first officer replied, “not before another day.”
So he stood on deck, or walked about, never thinking of food—what is food or drink to a youth who lives on hope?—till the gloaming shades gave place to night, till the southern stars shone over the hills and harbour, and strings upon strings of lamps and lights were hung everywhere across the city above and below.
Now the fairy scene is changed. Archie is on shore. It is the forenoon of another day, and the sun is warm though not uncomfortably hot. There is so much that is bracing and invigorating in the very air, that he longs to be doing something at once. Longs to commence laying the foundation-stone of that temple of fortune which—let Captain Vesey say what he likes—he, Archie Broadbent, is bent upon building.
He has dressed himself in his very English best. His clothes are new and creaseless, his gloves are spotless, his black silk hat immaculate, the cambric handkerchief that peeps coyly from his breast pocket is whiter than the snow, his boots fit like gloves, and shine as softly black as his hat itself, and his cane even must be the envy of every young man he meets.
Strange to say, however, no one appears to take a very great deal of notice of him, though, as he glances towards the shop windows, he can see as if in a mirror that one or two passengers have looked back and smiled. But it couldn’t surely have been at him? Impossible!
The people, however, are apparently all very active and very busy, though cool, with a self-possession that he cannot help envying, and which he tries to imitate without any marked degree of success.
There is an air of luxury and refinement about many of the buildings that quite impresses the young man; but he cannot help noticing that there is also a sort of business air about the streets which he hardly expected to find, and which reminds him forcibly of Glasgow and Manchester. He almost wishes it had been otherwise.
He marches on boldly enough.
Archie feels as if on a prospecting tour—prospecting for gold. Of course he is going to make his fortune, but how is he going to begin? That is the awkward part of the business. If he could once get in the thin end of the wedge he would quickly drive it home.
“There is nothing like ambition. If we steer a steady course.”
Of course there isn’t. But staring into a china-shop window will do him little good. I do not believe he saw anything in that window however. Only, on turning away from it, his foot goes splash into a pool of dirty water on the pavement, or rather on what ought to be a pavement. That boot is ruined for the day, and this reminds him that Sydney streets are not paved with gold, but with very unromantic matter-of-fact mud. Happy thought! he will dine.
The waiters are very polite, but not obsequious, and he makes a hearty meal, and feels more at home.
Shall he tip this waiter fellow? Is it the correct thing to tip waiters? Will the waiter think him green if he does, or green if he doesn’t?
These questions, trifling though they may appear, really annoyed Archie; but he erred on the right side, and did tip the waiter—well too. And the waiter brightened up, and asked him if he would like to see a playbill.
Then this reminded Archie that he might as well call on some of the people to whom he had introductions. So he pulled out a small bundle of letters, and he asked the waiter where this, that, and t’other street was; and the waiter brought a map, and gave him so many hints, that when he found himself on the street again he did not feel half so foreign. He had something to do now, something in view. Besides he had dined.
“Yes, he’d better drive,” he said to himself, “it would look better.” He lifted a finger, and a hansom rattled along, and drew up by the kerb. He had not expected to find cabs in Sydney. His card-case was handy, and his first letter also.
He might have taken a ’bus or tram. There were plenty passing, and very like Glasgow ’buses they were too; from the John with the ribbons to the cad at the rear. But a hansom certainly looked more aristocratic.
Aristocratic? Yes. But were there any aristocrats in Sydney? Was there any real blue blood in the place? He had not answered those questions to his satisfaction, when the hansom stopped so suddenly that he fell forward.
“Wait,” he said to the driver haughtily.
“Certainly, sir.”
Archie did not observe, however, the grimace the Jehu made to another cabman, as he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, else he would hardly have been pleased.
There was quite a business air about the office into which the young man ushered himself, but no one took much notice of him. If he had had an older face under that brand-new hat, they might have been more struck with his appearance.
“Ahem! Aw—!” Archie began.
“One minute, sir,” said the clerk nearest him. “Fives in forty thousand? Fives in forty are eight—eight thousand.”
The clerk advanced pen in mouth.
“Do you come from Jenkins’s about those bills?”
“No, I come from England; and I’ve a letter of introduction to your master.” Archie brought the last word out with a bang.
“Mr Berry isn’t in. Will you leave a message?”
“No, thank you.”
“As you please.”
Archie was going off, when the clerk called after him, “Here is Mr Berry himself, sir.”
A tall, brown-faced, elderly gentleman, with very white hair and pleasant smile. He took Archie into the office, bade him be seated, and slowly read the letter; then he approached the young man and shook hands. The hand felt like a dead fish’s tail in Archie’s, and somehow the smile had vanished.
“I’m really glad to see your father’s son,” he said. “Sorry though to hear that he has had a run of bad luck. Very bad luck it must be, too,” he added, “to let you come out here.”
“Indeed, sir; but I mean to make my for—that is, I want to make my living.”
“Ay, young man, living’s more like it; and I wish I could help you. There’s a wave of depression over this side of our little island at present, and I don’t know that any office in town has a genteel situation to offer you.”
Archie’s soul-heat sank a degree or two.
“You think, sir, that—”
“I think that you would have done better at home. It would be cruel of me not to tell you the truth. Now I’ll give you an example. We advertised for a clerk just a week since—”
“I wish I’d been here.”
“My young friend, you wouldn’t have had the ghost of a chance. We had five-and-thirty to pick and choose from, and we took the likeliest. I’m really sorry. If anything should turn up, where shall I communicate?”
Where should he communicate? And this was his father’s best friend, from whom the too sanguine father expected Archie would have an invitation to dinner at once, and a general introduction to Sydney society.
“Oh, it is no great matter about communicating, Mr Berry; aw!—no matter at all! I can afford to wait a bit and look round me. I—aw!—good morning, sir.”
Away stalked the young Northumbrian, like a prince of the blood.
“A chip of the old block,” muttered Mr Berry, as he resumed his desk work. “Poor lad, he’ll have to come down a peg though.”
The cabby sprang towards the young nob.
“Where next, sir?”
“Grindlay’s.”
Archie was not more successful here, nor anywhere else.
But at the end of a week, during which time he had tried as hard as any young man had ever tried before in Sydney or any other city to find some genteel employment, he made a wise resolve; viz, to go into lodgings.
He found that living in a hotel, though very cheerful, made a terrible hole in his purse; so he brought himself “down a peg” by the simple process of “going up” nearer the sky.
Here is the explanation of this paradox. It was Archie’s custom to spend his forenoons looking for something to do, and his evenings walking in the suburbs.
Poor, lonely lad, that never a soul in the city cared for, any more than if he had been a stray cat, he found it wearisome, heart-breaking work wandering about the narrow, twisting streets and getting civilly snubbed. He felt more of a gentleman when dining. Afterwards his tiredness quite left him, and hope swelled his heart once more. So out he would go and away—somewhere, anywhere; it did not matter so long as he could see woods, and water, and houses. Oh, such lovely suburban villas, with cool verandahs, round which flowering creepers twined, and lawns shaded by dark green waving banana trees, beneath which he could ofttimes hear the voices of merry children, or the tinkle of the light guitar. He would give reins to his fancy then, and imagine things—such sweet things!
Yes, he would own one of the biggest and most delightful of these mansions; he should keep fleet horses, a beautiful carriage, a boat—he must have a boat, or should it be a gondola? Yes, that would be nicer and newer. In this boat, when the moonlight silvered the water, he would glide over the bay, returning early to his happy home. His bonnie sister should be there, his brother Rupert—the student—his mother, and his hero, that honest, bluff, old father of his. What a dear, delightful dream! No wonder he did not care to return to the realities of his city life till long after the sun had set over the hills, and the stars were twinkling down brighter and lovelier far than those lights he had so admired the night his ship arrived.
He was returning slowly one evening and was close to the city, but in a rather lonely place, when he noticed something dark under the shade of a tree, and heard a girl’s voice say:
“Dearie me! as missus says; but ain’t I jolly tired just!”
“Who is that?” said Archie.
“On’y me, sir; on’y Sarah. Don’t be afear’d. I ain’t a larrikin. Help this ’ere box on my back like a good chummie.”
“It’s too heavy for your slight shoulders,” quoth gallant Archie. “I don’t mind carrying it a bit.”
“What, a gent like you! Why, sir, you’re greener than they make ’em round here!”
“I’m from England.”
“Ho, ho! Well, that accounts for the milk. So’m I from Hengland. This way, chummie.”
They hadn’t far to go.
“My missus lives two story up, top of a ware’us, and I’ve been to the station for that ’ere box. She do take it out o’ me for all the wage. She do.”
Archie carried the box up the steep stairs, and Sarah’s mistress herself opened the door and held a candle. A thin, weary-looking body, with whom Sarah seemed to be on the best and most friendly terms.
“Brought my young man,” said Sarah. “Ain’t he a smartie? But, heigho! so green! You never!”
“Come in a minute, sir, and rest you. Never mind this silly girl.”
Archie did go in a minute; five, ten, ay fifteen, and by that time he had not only heard all this ex-policeman’s wife’s story, but taken a semi-attic belonging to her.
And he felt downright independent and happy when next day he took possession.
For now he would have time to really look round, and it was a relief to his mind that he would not be spending much money.
Archie could write home cheerfully now. He was sure that something would soon turn up, something he could accept, and which would not be derogatory to the son of a Northumbrian squire. More than one influential member of commercial society had promised “to communicate with him at the very earliest moment.”
But, alas! weeks flew by, and weeks went into months, and no more signs of the something were apparent than he had seen on the second day of his arrival.
Archie was undoubtedly “a game un,” as Sarah called him; but his heart began to feel very heavy indeed.
Living as cheaply as he could, his money would go done at last. What then? Write home for more? He shuddered to think of such a thing. If his first friend, Captain Vesey, had only turned up now, he would have gone and asked to be taken as a hand before the mast. But Captain Vesey did not.
A young man cannot be long in Sydney without getting into a set. Archie did, and who could blame him. They were not a rich set, nor a very fast set; but they had a morsel of a club-room of their own. They formed friendships, took strolls together, went occasionally to the play, and often had little “adventures” about town, the narratives of which, when retailed in the club, found ready listeners, and of course were stretched to the fullest extent of importance.
They really were not bad fellows, and would have done Archie a good turn if they could. But they could not. They laughed a deal at first at his English notions and ideas; but gradually Archie got over his greenness, and began to settle down to colonial life, and would have liked Sydney very much indeed if he had only had something to do.
The ex-policeman’s wife was very kind to her lodger. So was Sarah; though she took too many freedoms of speech with him, which tended to lower his English squirearchical dignity very much. But, to do her justice, Sarah did not mean any harm.
Only once did Archie venture to ask about the ex-policeman. “What did he do?”
“Oh, he drinks!” said Sarah, as quietly as if drinking were a trade of some kind. Archie asked no more.
Rummaging in a box one day, Archie found his last letter of introduction. It had been given him by Uncle Ramsay.
“You’ll find him a rough and right sort of a stick,” his uncle had said. “He was my steward, now he is a wealthy man, and can knock down his cheque for many thousands.”
Archie dressed in his best and walked right away that afternoon to find the address.
It was one of the very villas he had often passed, in a beautiful place close by the water-side.
What would be his reception here?
This question was soon put at rest.
He rang the bell, and was ushered into a luxuriously-furnished room; a room that displayed more richness than taste.
A very beautiful girl—some thirteen years of age perhaps—got up from a grand piano, and stood before him.
Archie was somewhat taken aback, but bowed as composedly as he could.
“Surely,” he thought, “she cannot be the daughter of the rough and right sort of a stick who had been steward to his uncle. He had never seen so sweet a face, such dreamy blue eyes, or such wealth of hair before.
“Did you want to see papa? Sit down. I’ll go and find him.”
“Will you take this letter to him?” said Archie.
And the girl left, letter in hand.
Ten minutes after the “rough stick” entered, whistling “Sally come up.”
“Hullo! hullo!” he cried, “so here we are.”
There he was without doubt—a big, red, jolly face, like a full moon orient, a loose merino jacket, no waistcoat or necktie, but a cricketer’s cap on the very back of his bushy head. He struck Archie a friendly slap on the back.
“Keep on yer cap,” he shouted, “I was once a poor man myself.”
Archie was too surprised and indignant to speak.
“Well, well, well,” said Mr Winslow, “they do tell me wonders won’t never cease. What a whirligig of a world it is. One day I’m cleanin’ a gent’s boots. Gent is a capting of a ship. Next day gent’s nephew comes to me to beg for a job. Say, young man, what’ll ye drink?”
“I didn’t come to drink, Mr Winslow, neither did I come to beg.”
“Whew-ew-ew,” whistled the quondam steward, “here’s pride; here’s a touch o’ the old country. Why, young un, I might have made you my under-gardener.”
The girl at this moment entered the room. She had heard the last sentence.
“Papa!” she remonstrated. Then she glided out by the casement window.
Burning blushes suffused Archie’s cheeks as he hurried over the lawn soon after; angry tears were in his eyes. His hand was on the gate-latch when he felt a light touch on his arm. It was the girl.
“Don’t be angry with poor papa,” she said, almost beseechingly.
“No, no,” Archie cried, hardly knowing what he did say. “What is your name?”
“Etheldene.”
“What a beautiful name! I—I will never forget it. Good-bye.”
He ran home with the image of the child in his mind—on his brain.
Sarah—plain Sarah—met him at the top of the stairs. He brushed past her.
“La! but ye does look glum,” said Sarah.
Archie locked his door. He did not want to see even Sarah—homely Sarah—that night.