Constant dropping will wear a stone, says the old proverb; and if you
doubt it, go and look at some step where the rain has dripped from
gutter or eave, and see what a nice little hollow is worn. The constant
dropping of unsavoury words wears the mind too; and these remarks and
banterings about Australia and its convict life in the early days of the
century began to have their effect upon Nic Braydon.
He was a good deal younger when his father, an eminent physician in
London, awoke to the fact that he had been curing other people at his
own expense, that he had worked and studied and been anxious over
patients in his dingy house in Finsbury till he was completely broken in
health; and he knew enough of his own nature to be aware that, if he
kept on as he was, he would in a year or two be a confirmed invalid, if
he were still living. In other words, he had worn the steel spring of
life till it had grown thin in some places, and rusted and eaten away in
others for want of use.
Then he said to himself like a wise man, "I advise others and neglect
myself. I must be my own physician now."
He knew perfectly what he ought to do--take to some open-air life in a
healthy country, where his avocations would give him plenty of outdoor
exercise; and just at that time he met the newly appointed, governor of
the penal colony of Australia at dinner. He heard a good deal about the
place, went home and read, and inquired more; then, striking while the
lion was hot, he sold his practice, house, and furniture, provided all
that he could think of as necessaries, communicated with the government,
and, after placing his son Dominic, then aged ten, at the Friary with
Dr Dunham, he sailed with his wife and two daughters for the far-off
land.
Now, Nic's notions about all this had grown a little hazy, while the
teasings of his companions grew keener and sharper day by day, and
mastered the facts; so that at last he had often found himself wondering
whether there was any truth in his schoolfellows' words, and his father
had, after all, done something which necessitated his leaving the
country.
That seed did not take root; but it swelled, and shot, and gave him a
great deal of pain, making him grow morbid, old, and thoughtful beyond
his years. He became more sensitive; and when at last the doctor seemed
to side against him, and treated him as he thought harshly, Nic began to
find out thoroughly that it is not good for a boy to lose the loving
help and companionship of father, mother, and sisters, and he grew day
by day more gloomy, and ill-used as he believed, till at last, after the
sharp reproof from the doctor about his quarrelsome disposition and
ill-treatment of his schoolfellow Green, he began to feel it was time he
set off to seek his fortune, never once pausing to think that the doctor
had only judged by appearances. He had seen Nic attacking Green quite
savagely, and not having been present earlier, and, truth to tell, not
having sufficiently studied the inner life of his boys, he had looked
upon Nic as an ill-conditioned, tyrannical fellow, who deserved the
severest reproof.
So Nic thought it was time to seek his fortune.
Who was the miserable ass who first put that wretched idea into boys'
heads, and gave them a mental complaint which has embittered many a
lad's life, when, after making some foolish plunge, he has gone on
slowly finding out that castles in the air, built up by his young
imagination, are glorious at a distance, but when approached the colours
fade? They are erected with no foundation, no roof; no walls, windows,
doors, or furniture--in fact, they are, as Shakespeare says, "the
baseless fabric of a vision."
So much by way of briefly moralising on the fact that for, a boy to make
up his mind to go and seek his fortune means, in say nine hundred and
ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a
million, trying to climb upward in search of a castle in the air, or
tying a muffler round the eyes before making a leap in the dark.
So Nic wanted good advice, change, and something to drag him out of the
belief that he was one of the most ill-treated young personages in the
world.
But something came just a fortnight after the fight.
Nic's brow was all in puckers, his cheeks were pushed up in folds by his
fists, his elbows rested upon his desk, and he was grinding away at a
problem in Euclid--with thoughts of Green, Tomlins, the doctor, and a
sore place upon one of his knuckles, which had partially healed up and
been knocked again and again, all netted and veined in among
right, acute and obtuse angles, sides, bases, perpendiculars,
slanting-diculars, producings, joinings of AB and CD, and the rest of
it--when one of the doors opened, the servant went up to the desk of the
usher in charge, and the hum in the big schoolroom ceased as the usher
tapped the desk before him.
"Braydon."
"Yes, sir."
"The doctor wishes to see you in the study."
Nic had started up, and now the wrinkles in his brow grew deeper, and
then disappeared as if by magic, for he had caught sight of Green
grinning at him with satisfaction in every curve of fat,
self-satisfied-looking countenance; and putting on an air of calm
indifference he moved toward the door.
As it happened he had to pass just in front of Green's desk, and the lad
raised himself a little, put out a leg to cause a stumble, and
whispered:
"Birch. Keep the door shut, and don't--"
Green was going to say "howl," but he illustrated his meaning by
uttering a cry wonderfully like that sent forth by a cat under similar
circumstances.
"What's that?" cried the usher.
"I trod on Green's foot by accident, sir," said Nic.
"Green should not leave his feet lying about all over the floor," said
the usher, trying to be facetious, and then looking satisfied, for his
joke was received with a roar, which was increased at the sight of
Green's ghastly smile as Nic went out of the schoolroom.
"That's birch for him," he muttered, as he passed through the baize
door, which shut out the noise of the school from the rest of the house;
and the boy drew a deep breath as he crossed the hall toward the study,
connected in his mind with scoldings and reproofs of the severest kind.
"What have I been doing now?" thought Nic, as he laid hold of the handle
after knocking and hearing a deep-toned "Come in."
Then he started and stared, for there was a fine-looking middle-aged
lady seated near the doctor's table, who turned to look at him
searchingly as he stopped short.
"I beg pardon, sir. You sent for me?"
"Yes, yes, Braydon: come in. This is Lady O'Hara."
"Yes, I'm Lady O'Hara. Look at that, now. A great strapping fellow!
And he told Sir John that it was his little boy."
Nic stared, for this was spoken loudly, in a pleasant rich voice, with
an intonation that decidedly fitted with the name.
"Yes, yes," said the doctor, who was smiling and very courtly; "but Dr
Braydon forgot that his son has been with me over five years, madam, and
he has grown bodily, and mentally, I hope."
"To be sure. Shake hands, Dominic. Why, you ought to be Irish, with a
name like that."
"Lady O'Hara!" cried Nic excitedly, as he grasped the hand extended to
him. "Do you know my father?"
"Oh, don't make jam of my fingers, boy, and I'll tell you," cried the
lady, with a pleasant grimace. "Ah, that's better. Yes, of course I
know him. He lives next door to us, about a hundred miles away."
The doctor chuckled, and Nic stared.
"Sit down, Braydon, sit down," said the doctor. "Ah! that's better,"
said the lady, in a fresh, cheery way. "Well, now, look at that,
doctor. Here am I, come at his father's wish to take care of him, and
he's big enough to take care of me."
"But--I beg your pardon," cried Nic--"you know my mother, madam?"
"To be sure I do, and the two girls; and here's a batch of letters I've
brought."
"Oh, tell me, please," cried Nic excitedly, taking the letters with
trembling hand,--"my mother and Janet and Hilda, what are they like?"
"Gently, gently," cried the lady; "where will I find breath to answer
your questions? Why, the poor boy's like an orphan, Dr Dunham, living
all these years away from home."
"Mrs Dunham and I try to make this my pupils' home," said the doctor,
with dignity.
"Yes, I know," said the lady, smiling a broad, pleasant smile, and
showing her fine white teeth; "but sure, doctor, there's no place like
home. It's very pleasant out yonder with Sir John, but I long for wild
old Galway, where I was born. Well, Dominic, and do you know what I've
come for?"
"You said something about taking care of me, madam," stammered Nic.
"Ah, and don't stammer and blush like a great gyurl, and don't call me
madam. I am a very old friend now of your dear mother, and I've come to
take you back with me over the salt say--I mean sea, doctor, but I
always called it say when I was a gyurl. I was in England a great deal
after I was married, but the fine old pronunciation clings to me still,
and I'm not ashamed."
"Why should you be, Lady O'Hara?" said the doctor in his most courtly
manner, as he rose. "There, you would like to have a quiet chat with
Dominic Braydon. I will leave you till lunch is ready."
"Oh, I don't know about lunch," said the lady, hesitating. "Yes, I do.
Dominic here will lunch with us, of course?"
"Of course," said the doctor, smiling; and there was a curious look in
his eye as Nic glanced at him sharply.
"Sure, then, I'll stay," said the lady. "But wait a minute: I shall be
obliged to answer the question when we get back over the say. Did I say
say or sea then, Dominic?"
Nic coloured a little.
"Oh, there's no doubt about it," cried the lady. "It was say, doctor.
Now then, tell me: has he been a good boy?"
The doctor wrinkled his brow and pursed up his lips.
"Ah! ye needn't tell me. I can see--about half-and-half."
"Well, yes--about that," said the doctor.
"To be sure," said the lady; "and I'm glad of it. What's wrong with
him?"
"Oh, I don't like to tell tales out of school," said the doctor
jovially. "Not quite so much of a student as I could have wished. His
classics are decidedly shaky, and his mathematics--"
"Look here, doctor: can he write a good plain English letter, properly
spelt, and so as you can read it without puzzling because he hasn't
dotted his i's and crossed his t's?"
"Oh! yes, yes, yes," said the doctor; "we can do that, eh, Braydon? But
there's rather a long list of black marks against his name," he
continued severely. "For instance, there has been a tendency toward
fighting."
"There, that'll do, doctor.--Come and give me a kiss, my dear.--Sure,
doctor," she continued, after Nic had obeyed, "he's coming out to a new
country, where that part of his education will be of the greatest value
to him."
"My dear madam!" cried the doctor, staring.
"Oh, I mean it, sir. It's a new country, full of savages, black and
white, and the white are the worst of them, and more shame for us we
sent them there, though I don't know what else we could have done.
Dominic, my lad, do you know we're going to make a convict of you?"
Nic gave a violent start, and darted a reproachful glance at the
visitor.
"There, leave us together a bit, doctor," she said quickly, "and I'll be
bound to say when lunch is ready we shall both of us be as hungry as
sailors with talking, for I've got to question him and answer all his."
"To be sure, to be sure," said the doctor. "Then, if you will excuse
me, Lady O'Hara, I will adjourn to the schoolroom."
"There, Dominic," cried the lady as soon as they were alone, "now we can
talk like old friends. But tell me what made you start and colour like
a great gyurl when I talked of making a convict of you?"
Nic was silent.
"Won't you tell me?" cried the lady, smiling at him in a winning, frank
way, which unlocked the boy's lips at once and made him feel eager to
confide in one who took so much interest in him.
"Yes, I'll tell you," he cried: "it's one of the boys--the biggest. He
has set it about that my father is--is--is--"
"A convict?"
Nic nodded, and his brow contracted.
"The impudence!"
"And he nicknamed me Convict. And it isn't true, Lady O'Hara? Pray,
pray tell me."
"About your father, Dr Braydon? Be ashamed of ye'self, boy, for ever
thinking it. Your father's the finest gentleman in New South Wales, and
the best friend that Sir John and I ever had in our hard life yonder."
Nic drew a long, deep breath. Something seemed to be swelling up in his
throat, and he reached forward to catch hold of and retain the plump
white hand, which returned his pressure.
"And so the big fellow called you Convict, did he, because your father's
over the water!"
"Yes."
"And I see now: that accounts for the fighting?"
Nic nodded.
"I bore it as long as I could," he said eagerly; "and it began about
something else."
"Sure, and why did you wait for that? You should have done it at once.
I would."
Nic stared in wonder and admiration at his new friend.
"But tell me: did you give him a great big beating?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
"Then don't be afraid any more. It would do him good. There, I was
thinking I was going to have the care of a tiresome young, monkey of a
boy; but I promised your dear mother, and should have taken you back.
But, do you know, Dominic, you and I are going to be great friends."
"I hope so," said Nic.
"I'm sure of it. There, I don't want to know any more about you. I
only say that you're just the lad for over yonder, and your father will
be delighted. Now, then: ask me anything you like."
"May I?"
"To be sure."
"Then what is my mother like now?"
"Look yonder," said the lady, pointing to a great mirror. "Now think of
your face made thinner and more delicate, and with soft curls of silky
grey hair, beside a very white forehead; and a gentle expression, not a
hard look, like yours. That's your mother."
"And my father?" cried Nic eagerly.
"Look again," said the lady, "and fancy your face in thirty years' time,
with dark grey hair, all in little rough half-curls, and a great many
lines in the brown skin all over the forehead, and about the eyes."
"Yes," said Nic eagerly, as he stared at himself.
"And a look of a man who is strong as a horse; and that's all. No,
stop: I forgot his birrd."
"His bird! Does he keep a bird?"
"The young ruffian! he's making sport of me," said the lady. "I said
birrd: b-e-a-r-d, birrd. And it's all tinged grey and black. That's
your father."
"And the girls?"
"Oh, just two bright sun-browned colleens, like you, only better
looking. What next?"
"What sort of a place is it?"
"Place? Oh, there's a wooden house on a slope looking down a bluff at
the edge of a great plain, from which you look over the Blue Mountains."
"Yes, they call them blue because they're green, I suppose?" said Nic,
with a smile.
"And people say it's only we Irish who make bulls," cried the lady
merrily. "No; they call them blue because in the distance they look as
clear and blue as the loveliest amethyst. Ah! it's a beautiful place,
Dominic, as you'll say."
"And big?"
"Big?"
The lady laughed softly.
"Yes, boy; it's big. There's plenty of land out yonder, and so the
government's pretty generous with it. Here at home they count a man's
estate by acres: we do it in square miles out there."
"Look here, Dominic," said the lady, after answering scores of
questions, during what seemed to Nic the happiest hours he had ever
spent in his life, "I've been thinking."
"Yes, madam."
"Say Lady O'Hara, boy," cried the visitor petulantly; and then, with a
sad smile full of pathos on her quivering lip, she added softly, "I
can't tell ye to call me mother: my son died, Dominic, just when he
began to know me; but look here," she cried, brightening, though the lad
could see tears in her fine dark eyes, out of which she seemed to peer
as from passing clouds. "Sure, I tell ye I've been thinking. Your
father said it was time you left school to finish your education out
there."
"Education?" faltered Nic.
"Oh yes; but not book learning, boy: hunting, and shooting, and riding,
and stock-keeping, and farming, and helping to make Australia a big
young England for John Bull's sons and daughters, who want room to
move."
"Yes, I see," cried Nic.
"To be sure you do. Well, then, the ship sails in a month from to-day:
so what's the good of your stopping here for a month?"
"But I've nowhere else to go," said Nic.
"Oh! yes, you have. You and I have got to be great friends--there,
something more than that. I shall just borrow you of your father and
mother till I have to give you up at Port Jackson. So, what do you say
to my taking you away with me at once?"
"Lady O'Hara!"
"Don't shout, boy: this isn't the bush. Will you come?"
Nic sprang from his chair.
"Look at that, now!" cried Lady O'Hara, showing her teeth. "Hadn't we
better have a bit of lunch first?"
"Oh! yes, yes, yes, of course. But, Lady O'Hara, will you take me?"
"Take ye? Why, what an ungrateful young rapparee it is, wanting to
leave the home of five years like that!"
"Home!" cried Nic piteously. "Oh, Lady O'Hara, it hasn't been like
home. I haven't been happy here."
"Sure, I know, boy, and it was only my fun," said Lady O'Hara, laying
her hand upon the lad's head: "as if a boy could be quite happy away
from all who love him, and whom, in spite of his thoughtless way; he
loves! Then you shall come and live with me at the hotel, and help me
do all my shopping and commissions, beside getting your outfit and the
things you're to take out for your father. Come, Dominic, is it a
bargain?"
"Do--do you really wish it?"
"Why, of course, boy, or I wouldn't ask you. Ah, here's the doctor and
his lady. Sure, madam, I'm glad to make your acquaintance," said Lady
O'Hara, with grave dignity. "Dominic Braydon and I have been arranging
matters, and I should be obliged by your having his boxes seen to and
sent off to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" said the doctor.
"Yes," said the visitor, in a quiet, decisive tone; "and as for your
pupil--your late pupil--I shall take him away with me directly after
lunch."
Both the doctor and his lady began to make excuses about the
impossibility of Braydon being ready at so short a notice; and Lady
O'Hara turned to the boy.
"Do you hear that, Dominic? You can't be ready in the time. What do
you say?"
"I can," replied Nic.
"Of course you can, boy. There, doctor, I've come to take him, so now
let's have lunch."
The lunch was eaten, and the doctor and Mrs Dunham having nothing more
to say, Nic hastily packed up his things, and then ran to the schoolroom
to say good-bye. Ten minutes later he was in Lady O'Hara's carriage,
with the cheer given by the boys humming in his brain and a peculiar
sensation of sadness making itself felt, though all the time his heart
was throbbing with exultation, and the intense desire to go on faster
and faster, far away from school, and to make his first plunge into the
unknown.
Lady O'Hara did not speak for some time, but took out her little ivory
tablets, and sat back in the carriage conning over the memoranda they
contained, while her companion read and re-read his letters. Then,
shutting them up, she returned the little book to its case and faced
round.
"Well," she said, with a merry look, "have you done breaking your heart,
Dominic?"
"Yes," he said gravely.--"I can't help feeling sorry to come away, and
I'm afraid the boys liked me better than I thought for. It isn't so
nice as I fancied it would be."
"No, I suppose not," said his companion; "nothing ever is so nice as we
thought it would be. Like to go back for a month till the ship sails?"
"What!" cried Nic.
"I'll tell the man to drive back, if you like."
"You're saying that to tease me, Lady O'Hara."
"True, my boy, I was."
"And you know I wouldn't go back. All I want now is to get on board and
start on our long journey."
"Ah, and that's, as I told you, a month hence. There, Dominic, you must
mind I don't spoil you before I get you home. Now talk to me and tell
me about yourself."