"People couldn't a-bear to send their children to Mr. Fawcus's school when they saw him preaching in the market-place like any heathen missionary. It gave them the idea he was funny, and so the scholars'ud leave until there wasn't one left, and then Mr. Fawcus had to move to another town and start over again with another school. Besides, I was always a hindrance to him."
"You were never a hindrance, my love."
"Oh, yes, I was, Mr. Fawcus, and well you know it. The truth is parents don't want a homely woman like me for a teacher. They look for something quite different in a school-mistress, something tall and starchy."
"And what are you going to do in Australia?" Edward asked.
"In Australia, my dear sir," Mr. Fawcus boomed, "in Australia I am going to educate the aborigines, who I understand from the reports of travelers are considered the most degraded race of human beings on this earth. Should that prove truer than the majority of travelers' tales there must be room for education. After my experience with the children of...."
"Hush!" his wife interjected. "Hush, Mr. Fawcus!"
"After my experience with the last school I founded in England the aborigines of Australia will be easy to manage. Their women, I believe, are known as ginns. A most unbecoming designation. I shall try to persuade them to abolish that name. The sea is rising, I observe with regret. We are liable to pass a rough night, I fear. And I am usually right. In fact, my intimates often nickname me Mr. Forecast. My own name, by the way, is remarkable, don't you think? I have been tempted to speculate upon its origin, and I have sometimes fancied that it might be found among the senatus populusque Romanus. I was informed the other day, however, by a gentleman of curious etymological knowledge that it is probably a local variant of Fawkes. You of course remember Guy of that ilk? Yes, the sky is looking very dirty indeed."
A steely dusk of northwest weather lay chill upon the Wizard Queen when she was tossing in the Downs, and by night the wind was blowing with hurricane fury from the Kentish coast. The music and motion of the storm kept all on board awake, and when about three o'clock there was a crash followed by a dreadful sound of grinding timbers, the faces of the terrified passengers immediately appeared from every cabin.
Edward bade his wife wrap up the baby while he found out what had happened, and with only an overcoat over his nightshirt he forced his way on deck. From the darkness on the port side a shape seemed to carve itself to the fleeting likeness of another vessel, but it vanished so quickly that Edward fancied the vision to be a chimera of the night.
"All hands to lower the boats," a voice cried from forward in the murk of the night. Figures in dripping oilskins, like monsters risen from the sea, pushed Edward aside to get at their business; but he managed to make his way back aft to where from the orange mist above the saloon-companion a stream of disheveled passengers belched forth like smoke waving in the blast. As he fought his way down to find Elizabeth and the old man, he heard another shout for'ard.