That night I boarded the boat for Melbourne, speculating most of the passage as to whether She would be down to meet me, how She would look, and so on. It was nearly five years since we had bade good-bye to each other—for a few months! The familiar landmarks slipped by—Montague Island, Cook's Pigeon House, Mt. Imlay, Queenscliff, then Melbourne wharf at 11 p.m.
And She was there to meet me all right—with a chaperone (I suppose that's the correct term. Anyway, it was her aunt), who discreetly turned her back to our meeting, and, giddy old thing, ogled a big policeman, who was looking at us with a kind of amused tolerance as of one who had been all through that kind of thing long ago and got past it. We chartered a cab, and got the last train home by a hair's breadth.
The day was fixed for a fortnight ahead, and the time passed in a whirlwind of visits and introductions to about half the population of that Melbourne suburb, I should think. Then there was the preliminary visit to the reverend gentleman who was to "pass the reef point."
I'll never forget that day. We had missed the train, and had to walk, say, three miles over some flat open country. I've been in Calcutta in the height of the South-West monsoon; in a place called Infernillo (anglicé "little Hell"), a dreadful desert spot up the Gulf of California; in Santiago-da-Cuba in July—but never in my life have I felt such an unbearable scorching heat as on that awful walk in the hot North wind in Melbourne. The kindly old clergyman showed us his thermometer—109 degrees in a stone-walled room and the blinds drawn. And they call it a hell of a day up here in North Queensland when the mercury touches 85 degrees! Give a dog a bad name——
The momentous day came round in due course. The augury was excellent. A brilliant sun, cool breeze, and, as I stepped on to the verandah in the early morning, a flight of white seagulls wheeling round overhead. What better omen could the most superstitious desire?
The ceremony was quickly over. I am burdened with four Christian names, and when the parson came to "I, Charles William Reginald," etc., he transposed the names, and there was a dreadful moment, while I hesitated, wondering whether I would be properly married if I alluded to myself as "William Charles." However, I courageously said I was Charles, the minister smiled, and we were soon spliced hard and fast. My best man had the ring ready at the right moment, and of course the blessed thing wouldn't go on, and I had to use brute force to get it on to its proper finger. Then the wedding breakfast, where doubtless, under the combined influence of love, lemonade and excitement, I made numerous speeches, and soared to heights of windy verbosity seldom heard outside Parliament House. Following that the usual photographer arranged us on the lawn and snapped us in the usual fashion; then, ho! for the station and Australian wharf, where lay the good ship "Canberra," which was to have the signal honour of bearing us North.
CHAPTER XXI.
Starting Housekeeping.
Rapidly the splendid "Canberra" ploughed her way North. Fine weather attended us, making our trip a perfect honeymoon. The wretched confetti having completely given us away, the ship's personnel seemed to regard us with a sort of proprietary air of paternal amusement. In due course we reached Mackay, where there was a lop of a sea alongside, sufficient to keep the tenders rolling and bumping, and prevented the side ladder from being lowered. The passengers desirous of going ashore had therefore to be gathered into the embrace of a cargo net six at a time and slung overboard on to the tender's deck per derrick, like so many bags of spuds. It was the funniest spectacle imaginable (to the onlooker) to see the sling load go down by the run on to the tender's deck, the contents to go sprawling like a spilt handful of peas. Of course it can't be helped, with the tender rising and falling four or five feet in the seaway.