So Claude develops at first a simple desire to shield this forlorn maiden. He feels somehow that she must be forlorn, although he does not,—and he feels ashamed to own it, even to himself,—he does not even know her name. She may be engaged to marry a man who will not appreciate her. What a sickening feeling comes over him at the thought. What a pity the days of the duello are over, and all that kind of thing. Surely she could never have looked into anybody’s soul before, as she did into his, with those deep blue orbs,—those eyes that have floated before him day and night since his little Brisbane adventure; her little dimpled face, flushed with excitement and pretty pursed-lipped anger, as he first saw it; or that angel look of mute entreaty as those glorious eyes shot burning arrows into his brain as he turned to her assistance, that would have spurred him to any rashness, much less knocking down a clumsy lout of a drayman. Yes, permanently nailed upon the wall of his mind’s photographic studio is the sunlit picture of the neatly dressed petite figure, with the halo of golden hair, that held out a tiny, faultlessly-gloved hand to him as she said good-bye, and, thanking him for his service, left him half-stupefied with a last glance of those glorious eyes.
This is Claude’s first affair, and one must not be too hard on him. Some men take love easily, as others do the measles. Some young fellows, on the contrary, have their best natures all over one grand eruption, which leaves their soul’s cuticle marked for ever, for good or bad, as the circumstances of the case direct. But really the spooney season is a more important time in a young man’s life than it is generally considered. For there is little doubt that men (who have “felt the pain”) look at womankind during the remainder of their lives through spectacles that are coloured rosy or grey, according to their happy or miserable experiences of “the sex,” as represented by the particular cause of their première grande passion. But instead of stating our own opinions upon a matter that every healthy subject diagnoses for himself or herself in his or her own way, we had better proceed to state at once that Claude had been “hard hit,” and that the “pleasing punishment” was given under the following circumstances.
On the afternoon of the S.S. Eidermere’s arrival at Brisbane, where she had to stay a few hours, Claude landed, and proceeded townwards from the region of great, busy wharves, behind which noisy steam-cranes were rattling and puffing at the cargoes of sundry vessels. At the gates of the steam-ship’s company’s yard the usual crowd, that always congregates in similar places to prey upon the freshly-arrived and perhaps sea-sick passengers, was there in force. Porters, cabmen, van-drivers, runners, and nondescript loafers of various sorts jostled each other and fought for the luggage of the travellers. Pushing his way through these, he soon found himself in the comparatively quiet neighbourhood of the public gardens, and was just about to enter them when he heard a great “how d’ye do” close at hand. This was occasioned by the dusty scuffling of two dogs, one of which was shrieking as only a small dog can shriek when in fear of immediate disintegration at the hands, or rather teeth, of a larger canine animal. Above all rose hoarse yells of delight from a circle of the city’s gamin who were enjoying the scene. Claude would have proceeded on his way, after turning his head to ascertain the cause of the uproar, but for a sight that attracted his sudden attention.
The small dog evidently belonged to a young lady, who, alone and unprotected amongst the crowd of roughs, was courageously but injudiciously trying to save her tiny four-footed dependent by beating the big dog with her parasol. Hurrying up to her assistance, Angland saw a burly, red-faced man, apparently the owner of the large animal, step forward and roughly snatch the fair one’s weapon of attack from her vigorous little hands, giving vent to his indignant feelings at the same time by expressing his intentions of “seein’ fair play,” and “lettin’ no blessed gal hurt ’is dawg.” Claude just saw the little figure with clasped hands, and heard the faltering appeal for help to the brutal bystanders, as he burst through the crowd. To him, accustomed to wild-boar hunting in the dark Hunua ranges near his home, the job of making a fierce pig-dog “take off” from its quarry had often been an every-day occurrence when training his canine hunters. It was comparatively an easy work to choke the big, over-fed cur, and make it let go its hold of the little ball of palpitating floss beneath it in the dust. To give the large dog a sounding kick that lifted it half-a-dozen yards away, whence it slunk off homewards, was the next act; and the whole thing was done ere the disappearing mongrel’s master could recover from his open-mouthed surprise. Claude was stooping to pick up the young lady’s dishevelled pet, when he saw the red-faced man “coming for him,” and was just in time to receive that gentleman’s most prominent features upon his own large and rather bony left fist. Angland knew that in a row with those modern mohocks, Australian larrikins, you must “hit to kill,” as Dick, his old home chum and “tutor in pugilism,” used to call it. So, following his defensive blow with one of attack, he instantly brought his right fist forward, so as to knock loudly on that thinner portion of his adversary’s skull which is situated just above the approximation of the jaw and ear, dropping him as neatly as the proverbial bullock. The crowd of roughs around, who would have half-killed and afterwards robbed our hero if he had been worsted in the encounter, drew back on seeing the big man fall, and respectfully made way for Claude, as, holding the little dog in his arms, he escorted the lady to whom he had been thus curiously introduced into the gardens, where she sank trembling on one of the seats.
“Oh, how good of you! How brave of you! I can’t thank you enough! Oh, I didn’t know what to do! Poor Fluffy, you’re not hurt much, my darling, are you?” (this to the dog). “You know I’d just landed from the ferry-boat, and I wanted to go to the post-office; and I’m always afraid of those horrible men and their nasty dogs when I come over. Poor little doggie,” as the worsted ball of a creature continues to wail softly. “How can I thank you!” And all the while the sweet little smiles, that were impartially divided between the dog and the man, were working a state of havoc in Claude’s heart, the completeness of which even the larrikins could hardly have imitated upon the young man’s body.
If the young lady had been plain, or even a little less enchanting, Claude would probably have found out a good deal about her in no time. But the bright little maiden, with the golden hair and dark, melting eyes, bewildered him with suppressed emotion, and when she prayed that he wouldn’t think her ungrateful if she said he mustn’t come with her further than the post-office, and then when they arrived there tripped off, after giving his hand a timorous little pressure with her tiny fingers, he felt as if he had just learned what heaven was and had lost all chance of it for ever.
He was inclined to rush madly after her and ask sundry questions, but by the time his thoughts had arranged themselves for action, his goddess had disappeared, and a white-shako’d policeman was watching him suspiciously with gin-and-watery eyes, as a possible slightly inebriated stranger whom he could drag to durance vile.
So Claude walked vaguely about the town (noticing nothing of it), vainly hoping all the while to see her once more, and, barely catching his boat, became surly for the rest of the evening.
“Turning in” early, he dreamed a lot of kaleidoscopic nonsense about fighting red-faced men with small-gloved hands, who changed into laughing-eyed girls and scraggy clogs by turns, and finally burst into pieces, looking like minute larrikins, with a noise resembling the rattling of the rudder-chains, whose jangle overhead awoke him every morning.
And this was how it came about that our young friend wasted his time and opportunities of learning about the wonderful land he was approaching from his fellow-passengers, and remained for a few days in an almost perpetual state of reverie, consisting of alternate pleasing remembrances and self-objurgations at not having ascertained “her” name. His “maiden meditations,” however, daily became fewer and farther between, and the particular one that cost him the loss of his mate’s yarn, and most of the lovely scenery that lies between Whitsunday Island and the mainland, was abruptly brought to a close by the Irish doctor aforesaid, who, having been a quondam associate of Claude in New Zealand, came to re-open a subject of conversation between them that had interested our hero considerably before the Brisbane catastrophe.