The attainment of pure and permanent happiness, by either of the
attached persons, has always been held to be a leading aim of true
friendship. Mild surprise at the nature of the implements chosen for
such attainment is, perhaps, admissible. But no selfish disapproval can
be justified for a moment, if only the appreciative partner elects to
adhere fixedly to the new plan or newer friend.
Still, human nature is ever more philosophical in theory than in
practice; and the wayfaring Damon, _de retour_, rarely reaches that
pinnacle of sublime abnegation which glories in being superseded, or
expresses gratitude that Pythias has provided himself with another
Damon, ‘whose Christian name was John.’ Some natural distrust must ever
be felt, must be exhibited, let the fresher friend be in the highest
degree justifiable, heroic, adorable.
All the essayists on friendship notwithstanding, Mr. Neuchamp felt
distinctly aggrieved. There was he, rushing back upon the wings
of—well—intelligent and sympathetic friendship, willing to resume
the delightful æsthetic intercourse which compulsory absence had
alone interrupted, and now, apparently, he needed not to have come at
all. Antonia was fully occupied, no doubt interested, by the first
frivolous foreigner that came in her way, and was singing duets and so
on, as if she had no higher aspiration than to listen for ever to a
German band.
Entering the drawing-room, Ernest presented himself just as the Count
(of course it was the Count, confound him!) was singing the _dich der
folgen_ portion of the melody with, as Ernest thought, ridiculously
exaggerated emphasis. He made the most of his eyes—which were really
fine—rolled them in an excess of admiration, and throwing the fullest
expressive force into the concluding stanza, sighed and bowed low
with admiring respect to the fair pianist. She smiled not wholly with
displeasure, and as she turned she met the somewhat grave and fixed
regard of Ernest Neuchamp.
‘Pray excuse me for disturbing your musical entertainment, Miss
Frankston,’ he said, with a coldness unlike anything she had ever
observed in his manner before.
Antonia’s colourless face, which had flushed slightly at the suddenness
of the _contretemps_, regained its habitual serene delicacy of hue, as
she calmly observed—
‘The Count von Schätterheims and I have been practising German duets
for a _matinée_ that Mrs. Folleton gives next week, and that all
Sydney is wild about. It is quite a treat to have the aid of one who
understands the genius of the poetry and music so thoroughly. Permit me
to introduce you to the Count, Mr. Neuchamp.’
The foreign nobleman, a tall, fair man, with a moustache like a
Pandour, bowed graciously, and resumed the musical subject.
‘Ah! I did know Mendelssohn so well as mine fader. He lif at our house
when he come to Munich. He always say I was born for a _maestro_.’
‘And why did you not fulfil his prediction, Count?’ asked Antonia, much
interested.
‘De sword,’ said Von Schätterheims with a grave, sad air. ‘You vill
comprehent, he vas too moosh for de lyre. I join de movement of
freedom. I haf commant, wit poor Körner. He die in dese arms.’
‘The lyre—ahem!’ said Ernest, smiling grimly at his utterly
unjustifiable _mot_, ‘has reasserted his right, I should say. Did not
Körner die in 18—?’ (Here he quoted the memorable ‘Sword Song’ in the
original.)
‘Ha!’ said the Count, a new expression, not only of satisfaction,
pervading his features, ‘thou hast seen the Faderland. No Englander
ever learned a so _heimlich_ acsend who drank not in youth the beer at
_Studenten-Kneipe_—we must have _Brüderschaft_. Is it not so?’
‘Do you think we can manage “Die Schwalben,” Count?‘ asked Antonia.
‘But I haf bromiss to be at the house of Madame Folleton, to hear
mademoiselle bractise dat leedle Folks-lied. Besites, we read Heine
togeder. She is aisthetig—yaas—to de tips of her finkers. Adieu!’
‘And now, Mr. Ernest Neuchamp, what have you to say for yourself?’ said
Antonia, in a tone between jest and earnest, ‘in that you have been in
my presence for half an hour and have only smiled twice, have called me
Miss Frankston, and have looked at that delightful creature, the Count,
with an air of stern disapproval? Where do you expect to go to?’
‘Really,’ said Ernest, ‘I am unconscious of having done or looked
anything peculiarly unsatisfactory. But I thought you were so
exceedingly well contented with the Count’s society that I doubted
whether I was not making an undesirable third. And who is this Count?’
‘Well, he had letters to papa and old Captain Blockstrop; and all
Sydney is wild about him. No party is worth going to where he does not
come. He is the most accomplished and charming person—plays, sings,
paints, has been a soldier and desperately wounded. All the young
ladies of Sydney are wild about him. He is enormously rich, and gives
such parties on board his yacht!’
‘And is Miss Frankston one of the young ladies whom this
broken-Englished invincible has conquered?’ asked Ernest. ‘May I be
permitted to congratulate her?’
‘You must judge for yourself,’ said the girl, with so merry a look
and such a genuinely amused expression that Mr. Neuchamp’s slight
experience of the ways of womankind assured him that no great damage
to his pupil’s heart had as yet taken place. ‘But there is just time
for a stroll on the beach before dinner, and a slight sketch of your
adventures since you left us. You look quite a bushman now. How
sunburned you have managed to get!’
Mr. Neuchamp was but mortal. The best of us, under certain conditions,
are weak. As Antonia shut down the piano and ran to get her straw
hat with girlish freedom of manner, he felt his justifiable wrath
evaporating. Long before they had finished that pleasant ramble in
the cool twilight, with the stars one by one appearing, the surge
voices whispering low and solemnly kind, the cool briny savour of the
ocean—a sea of enchantment to Ernest, but of yesterday from the inner
deserts—long before the somewhat emphasised dinner-bell rang, Ernest
repented of his pettishness. He knew that his friendship had suffered
neither wrong nor change. He felt that there were still feelings and
aspirations in that fresh, unspoiled, girlish heart to which he alone
had the password. He answered Mr. Frankston’s boisterous hail from the
verandah in a surprisingly nautical and cheery manner, and passed into
the enjoyment of dinner, and dinner talk, much relieved in mind.
‘What’s become of the Count, Antonia?’ said the old gentleman. ‘Try
that Chablis, Ernest, my boy; imported it since you were down. Old
Jedwood didn’t give you anything like that; thundering old screw, isn’t
he? good man for all that; trust him with your life. I thought you were
going to make the Count stay to dinner, Antonia.’
‘Well, it would have been pleasanter for Mr. Neuchamp, perhaps,’ said
the young lady demurely. ‘But he said he had to go to Mrs. Folleton’s.’
‘Oh! that was the attraction then,’ said Mr. Frankston. ‘They say he
admires Harriet Folleton tremendously. She will have twenty thousand
down; but as he is so wealthy himself, of course the cash can’t matter.’
‘You all seem to take it for granted that he is so very rich, and a
wonderful fellow in all respects,’ said Ernest. ‘He’s good-looking
enough, I admit; but who is to know whether he is really the man he
represents himself to be?’
‘Why should he not be himself,’ said Antonia, ‘more than any one else?’
‘For this reason,’ replied Ernest, ‘that it is much more easy for a
foreigner to impose upon English people, in a community like this, than
for an Englishman to practise a similar deceit. He has but to bring
manufactured introductions, and the whole difficulty is over to a man
of ordinary address and qualifications for sustaining such a part.’
‘Well, I must say,’ said Mr. Frankston, ‘that the letters I received
might have been written by any corresponding clerk in a German
counting-house. I took him and his letters for granted, and so did old
Blockstrop, just as we should have taken his bills properly endorsed.
But let me ask you, Ernest, my boy, doesn’t he look and speak like the
real thing?’
‘You must not be offended with me,’ said Ernest, conscious of a certain
flash in Antonia’s eyes, ‘or think me ungenerous, if I say that I
should like to take a little more time and have some opportunities of
intercourse before giving my opinion. You must remember that habitudes
of ceremonious behaviour pervade _all classes_ in continental countries
to an extent unknown in British communities. By superficial observers
a count and a courier, for instance, will not be perceived to differ
in manner or language; and the courier is often the more picturesque
personage of the two.’
‘And why not?’ inquired Antonia; ‘is there no difference between the
manners and the conversation of people of upper and lower rank, except
in England and English places?’
‘I do not say that; the contrary is the case, but the discrepancies are
sufficiently minute to escape British people not thoroughly acquainted
with the language. For the same reason no foreigner would discover the
difference between a good-looking, decently-educated Britisher who
dropped his aitches, and the real article. Thackeray somewhere gives a
case in point.’
‘Well, I suppose we shall be all at the great ball next week,’ said
Antonia, ‘and you will then be able to analyse Count von Schätterheims
to your heart’s content. They say he admires Harriet Folleton
extremely.’
‘It’s nothing to me whom he admires,’ said Ernest, ‘as long as he
leaves a certain independent-minded young lady friend of mine alone. I
should not like to see her carried off by any privateer hoisting false
colours.’
‘You are all jealous; that’s the truth, if you would but own it,’
laughed Antonia; ‘and indeed, if one thinks of the commotion the Count
has created among the Sydney young ladies, it seems reasonable enough.
If he had been a whole man-of-war compressed, he could not have been
more flattered and run after. And that is saying a great deal _here_,
you know.’
‘I am aware of that,’ said Ernest, with a slight bow; ‘short as has
been my experience, I have noticed so much.’
‘Well, I agree with Ernest to a certain extent,’ said old Paul
reflectively. ‘It’s as well to be cautious with these wonderful
strangers, especially foreigners. We haven’t quite forgotten Senor
Miranda yet, eh, Antonia?’
‘Yes, I did see him once, if that’s what you mean,’ said the girl,
looking at Ernest; ‘and I have always been very sorry that he should
have come to shame. He was a bad man, of course; but he was really so
very grand-looking, and when he spoke he had such a sweet, grave, deep
voice that you would have done whatever he asked you at once.’
‘What did he do, then?’ inquired Ernest.
‘Do?’ said Mr. Frankston. ‘Why, with forged letters of introduction he
commenced a business transaction with one of the banks; he placed to
his credit a large balance, which he took care to draw out; and the end
of it was that he walked off with five-and-twenty thousand pounds in
exchange for bills not worth _that_, and has never been seen or heard
of since.’
‘How many Germans are there?’ asked Antonia innocently.
‘Forty odd millions,’ answered Ernest.
‘And there are twenty-two millions of Spaniards,’ continued she, ‘for
I saw it to-day. Well, that makes so many—sixty millions, or more,
altogether. And we are to suspect and distrust all these people just
because Senor Miranda was a swindler. I wonder if foreign nations are
equally just to Englishmen on their travels.’
‘Come along and let us have our cigars,’ said the old gentleman.
‘Antonia, we must get you made Austrian consul. What—you haven’t
learned to smoke in the bush, Ernest? Never mind; come along all the
same. Cigars have more flavour in company, and the music will sound
better too.’
It was a superb night—one of the units of that wondrous wealth and
prodigality of perfect weather by which we should set greater store
were we compelled to undergo a quarter of the austerity of northern
Europe. Not a cloud was visible. The large and lustrous stars glowed
all unheeded by an accustomed world. All the intricacies of the harbour
seemed stretched and illumined by the glowing lights from the various
vessels outward, homeward bound, or at anchor. And yet all invisible
as was the sea, the presence of the majesty of the deep was manifest
in the salt savour of the air, in the half-heard murmur of the tide
ripples, in the far indistinctly wondrous tones of the surge upon the
distant beach.
As the old man lit his cigar and looked seaward, mechanically, the
first notes of a brilliant aria floated out upon the air from the
piano, and Ernest musingly realised the unostentatious luxury of the
household, the exquisite beauty of the scene and surroundings, and
contrasted them with the rude adjuncts of Garrandilla and its environs.
Next morning Mr. Windsor made his appearance immediately after
breakfast at Morahmee, and awaited commands.
‘What a pretty horse!’ said Antonia; ‘is that yours?’
‘That is Osmund, my first Australian hackney, and a great favourite,’
said Mr. Neuchamp, with a certain pride.
‘Well, you’ve done credit to your knowledge of horseflesh,’ said the
old gentleman; ‘he would fetch fifty pounds now in Sydney. And what
about my countryman who is on his back? I can tell his parish without
twice looking. He’s like the horse, a good-looking, upstanding young
one; but we can’t be so sure about _his_ value from appearance only.’
‘Jack Windsor is mine, too,’ said Ernest, ‘a good, clever fellow, I
think. It’s rather a long story how we first became acquainted. I’ll
tell it you some day. When I buy a run he will go with me as stockman
and right-hand man generally.’
‘So that’s the arrangement. I hope he will turn out a credit to you,
like the horse. He’s the cut of a good man, and I should have been very
glad to have shipped him in old days for a whaling cruise. You will
have to exercise your horse, now you have him stabled. Antonia would
like a canter, I daresay.’
‘I should, of all things,’ said that young lady. ‘My poor Waratah has
not been out for a week; she looks ready to fly over the moon with
nervousness. We might go this afternoon, if Mr. Neuchamp can spare the
time.’
Mr. Neuchamp declared that all his time was spare time now, and that
he should be charmed to be at Antonia’s disposal for any and every
afternoon as long as he remained in town.
So Jack and the gray horse were sent back to their stable, with orders
to return at three o’clock punctually.
‘And after the ball,’ said Mr. Frankston, ‘I shall take a holiday, so I
think we’ll have a sail and do a little fishing. At any rate we shall
see the harbour, and I can show you something choice in the way of
bays. How do you like the idea?’
Both of the young people protested that it was the exact thing they had
been longing for for months. And so, that arrangement being settled,
the old gentleman departed for town in his dogcart, and Ernest, having
a few things to do bordering upon business, accompanied him.
One of the minor perplexities which assail the student of human nature
arises from the fact that all, or nearly all, of the persons who arrive
in a colony conduct themselves after the same fashion. For a season,
which includes the first few months, they are wildly capricious, and
even reckless, in the matter of raiment. The idea is always uppermost
that, in a new country, it is not of the slightest consequence how
anybody dresses. That to no one, the newly-landed in particular, can
it possibly matter whether his fellow-mortals array themselves in
broadcloth or sackcloth, tweed or canvas, spotless linen or red shirt.
Another strongly implanted idea is, that the subdivisions of society,
set up by colonists among themselves, are vain, weak, and unnecessary.
These severely linear distinctions are adhered to in the old country,
and are _there_, doubtless, right and expedient. But, ye gods! in
this land, inhabited by the wandering savage but of yesterday, by
the confused crowd of hard and anxious colonists (all colonists
are necessarily rough and unceremonious), why revive these absurd,
exaggerated, old-world ceremonies?
Thus, during his little day of nonage, the emigrant Briton
disports himself, rejoicing in his newly-found emancipation from
conventionalities. He goes to a dinner party in a morning suit, and
finds himself the sole person not in evening dress. He pays visits in a
pilot’s jacket, and feels a thrill of pride and defiance as he observes
the young ladies of the house look wonderingly at him. He bears himself
as he would not dream of doing in his own country town, perhaps a more
primitive and deplorably dull neighbourhood than he could easily find
in the older districts of Australia. And for all this refusal to pay
the simple compliment of conformity to the kindly people among whom
he is entertained and made welcome, he has no better reason to give
himself or others than that it is a colony, and that it would be absurd
to expect the same social observances as in an old country.
Nothing could be more amiable than the general toleration which obtains
of this youthful eccentricity, were it not so thoroughly understood
that it is the ordinary early phase of griffinhood, and that it is
certain to wear out in time. It would be mortifying to the pride of the
contemner of social customs, could he but fully understand how every
one, from the mild uncritical senior to little miss in her teens, holds
these clothes-philosophical eccentricities in good-humoured contempt,
and relies upon the wearer becoming like everybody else, in a year or
two at farthest.
We know that much of this spirit possessed the aspiring soul of Ernest
Neuchamp when first he stood upon the balcony of the Royal Hotel and
gazed upon the crowd that passed below. But though he had abated not
a jot of some points of his original charter, he yet could not but
acknowledge that he was a very different individual, in opinion and in
feeling, from the ardent emigrant of only a year ago.
As one consequence of this altered tone of mind, he cheerfully accepted
Mr. Frankston’s offer of arranging his admission as honorary member
of one of the clubs. He began to feel a longing for the society of
his equals; and, as he could not be always lounging away the day at
Morahmee, and did not contemplate an immediate return to Garrandilla,
he saw the necessity of having some recognised place of temporary abode
wherein he might take his ease, in the society of gentlemen, and keep
himself _au courant_ with the progress of the world.
This transaction having been formally carried out by the ever-zealous
and kindly Paul, he was placed in receipt of a missive, signed by the
secretary, and announcing that he had been elected to be an honorary
member of the New Holland Club.
He was introduced next day by Mr. Frankston himself, and discovered
that he had the _entrée_ to a handsome commodious building, with a
larger extent of lawn and shrubbery than he had ever seen attached to
an institution of the nature before. The internal arrangements were
familiar, being precisely the same as those of the London Club, to
which he had been elected about five years after nomination.
There were the same grave, decorous servants, the same silent
appreciation of the same style of highly respectable cookery, the
same comfortable sitting-room, with—oh, pleasant sight!—good store of
magazines, _Punches_, _Saturdays_, _Pall Malls_, and all the priceless
luxuries of refined, if ephemeral, journalism. There was the same
deserted library, the same populous smoking-room, with billiard-room
ditto. To a few members old Paul had introduced him, and for the rest
he was aware that he must take his chance.
He found, after a day or two, that he had small reason to fear of
isolation. A gentlemanlike stranger needs but the evidence of this
quality to procure friendly acquaintances, if not intimates, at any
club.
He was soon known as ‘a young fellow who had been sent out to old
Frankston, and was going to buy a station. A decent sort of fellow
belonging to swell people, and so on. Going to do wonders, and make
important changes. That will wear off—we’ve all passed through that
mill. He’ll settle down and take to wool and tallow kindly, like all
the rest of us, in good time.’
Mr. Neuchamp made the discovery that, if he had been less obstinately
bent upon separating himself from the presumably prejudiced society of
the new land, in the fervour of his philanthropy, he might possibly
have met with other colonists, who, like Paul Frankston, would have
shielded him from harm, and proffered him good and true advice. In
his new home he made the acquaintance of more than one silver-haired
pioneer, who, while gently parrying the thrusts of his eager and
somewhat communistic theories, quietly put forward the dictates of
long experience and successful practice. Every one was disposed to be
tolerant, agreeable, even friendly, to the frank youngster, who was,
in spite of his crotchets, evidently ‘good form.’ And Ernest realised
fully, and rather unexpectedly, that even in a colony it is possible
for a stranger to fall among friends, and that colonists are not
invariably all stamped out of one pattern, whatever anticipations may
be compounded in the fancy of the emigrating critic.
In another respect Ernest found that his club privileges were valuable
as well as luxurious. Among the squatters, who composed the larger
proportion of the members, he had the advantage of hearing the question
of pastoral property discussed with fullest clearness and explanation,
in all its bearings. No one evaded giving a decided opinion upon the
chances of investment, though, according to temperament, and other
causes, the answers were various. All agreed, however, in one respect,
namely, that stock had touched a point of depression, below which it
seemed wellnigh impossible to fall. The great question, of course, was
whether such properties would ever rise, or whether such profits or
losses, as the case might be, must be accepted as permanently fixed.
‘I believe that cattle and sheep never _will_ rise a penny higher
during our lifetime, particularly cattle,’ said a slight, elegant,
cynical squatter, with whom Ernest had made acquaintance. ‘It’s of
course nothing but what any one ought to have expected in this infernal
country. What is there to keep stock up, I ask? As for wool, South
America will grow three bales to our one directly; and cattle and
horses will be slaughtered for their hides, as they are there.’
‘What a grumbler you are, Croker!’ said a stout cheery-looking
youngster, with a long fair moustache and a smooth face; ‘you run down
the country like a rival agent-general. Why do you stay in it, if it’s
so bad?’
‘I’d leave to-morrow if I could get any one fool enough to buy my
runs; take my passage by the mail and never be heard of here again.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t make a bad immigration agent, if the Government
wanted to appoint a prepossessing advertiser for Europe.’
‘Agent! why, what do you see in me to make you think I should accept
any such office?’
‘Only, this strikes me, that if you went on talking there in your
dissatisfied strain, the acute common people would be certain that you
had some reason of your own for dissuading them from embarking, and, so
thinking, would pour in by crowds.’
‘Likely enough,’ sneered the _avocat pour le diable_. ‘There are only
two sets of people in this rascally country—rogues and fools.’
‘And to which division of society do I belong, may I ask?’ inquired
Ernest, rather amused at the uncompromising nature of the denunciation.
‘Well, perhaps it’s not very polite, but, as you wish for the
information, I look upon you as a fool, for wishing to invest and waste
your life here; upon Compton as another, because he thinks well of the
place and people; and upon myself as the biggest one of the lot for
staying here, when I know so well what lies before the whole rotten
sham which calls itself a prosperous colony.’
‘Are matters then so bad?’ inquired Ernest, with some solicitude. ‘I
thought that the country was sound generally.’
Mr. Croker bestowed upon him a look of pity, mingled with contempt, and
in his most acid tones replied—
‘If you knew half as much as I do about the banks and mercantile
transactions, if you were a little behind the scenes as I have,
perhaps unluckily, been, you would know that a crash must come—_must_
come—within the next two or three years. I expect to see all the banks
in the hands of official assignees—they’ll be the only solvent people.
As for the merchants——’
‘Well, Mr. Jermyn Croker, “as for the merchants”?‘ said a jolly voice,
and Paul Frankston’s rubicund and reassuring countenance appeared in
the little group which had gathered to listen to the lamentations of
this latter-day seer—‘how about the merchants?’
‘Why,’ returned Mr. Croker, totally unabashed, ‘I expect to see you,
and Holder Brothers, and Deloraine and Company, and the rest, begging
in the streets.’
‘Ha! ha! ha! capital. Well done, Jermyn; put a half-crown or two in
your pocket against that day; I know you’d like to relieve honest
poverty. In the meantime come and dine with me on Thursday, will you,
and Compton, and Neuchamp? Better come soon, you know, while that
Roederer holds out. “Let us eat and drink,” you know, etc. I say, what
will you take for that cattle station of yours at Lake Wondah? No use
holding, you know, eh?’
‘Two pounds a head, for three thousand—calves given in.’
‘What dates?’
‘Cash down! Do you think I’d take any man’s bills now? No, not if
Levison himself were to endorse.’
‘Hem—ha—I learn the cattle are baddish, but the run is understocked.
How long will you leave it open?’
‘Oh! a month; three months if you like. Send me a cheque at any time
for six thousand and I will send you an order to take possession; that
is, as soon as I find the cheque all right.’
‘Ha! ha! not bad, Croker. It would be the first cheque of Paul
Frankston’s that ever was unpaid, so far. But you’ll not forget
Thursday, all of you, boys. We must try and shake Croker out of the
blues, or he’ll ruin the prospects of every squatter in New South
Wales.’
Mr. Neuchamp’s spirits were not so permanently affected by the
alarming vaticinations of Mr. Jermyn Croker as that he was prevented
from exhibiting Osmund’s figure and paces past the club verandah that
afternoon, followed by Mr. Windsor on Ben Bolt, on his way to keep
tryst with Antonia.
There may be a pleasanter species of locomotion, on a fine day, than
that afforded by a good horse in top condition over a smooth road,
in the immediate vicinity of a valued lady friend; let us say there
may be, but we have yet to discover it. The yacht, sweeping like a
seamew over the rippling, gaily-breaking billow, with courses free
and a merry company aboard, holds high excitement and joyous freedom
from the world’s cankering cares; the mail-phaeton with a pair of
well-bred steppers, or, better still, a high drag behind a fresh team,
well matched and better-mouthed, has its own peculiar fascination as
one is whirled through the summer air, or borne fast and free through
the gathering twilight homewards and dinnerwards; even the smooth,
irresponsible rush of the express train yields not wholly disagreeable
sensation of a victory over time and space, as we whirl down the flying
grades and round the somewhat _risque_ curves. But the personal element
which the rider shares with the bonny brown, or gallant grey, that
strides with joyous elasticity beneath him, had a thrill, in the ‘brave
old days of pleasure and pain,’ that dwarfed all other recreation. If
anything can intensify the feeling of joyance, it is the presence,
similarly equipped, of the possible princess. Then the fairy glamour
is complete—in the forest glades are the leaflets hung with diamonds,
the half-heard music is full of unearthly cadences—and as the graceful
form sways with movement of her eager palfrey, the good knight’s head
must be harder than his casque if heart and sword and fame, past,
present, and to come, be not laid, then and there, at the feet of that
ladye-fayre.
Miss Frankston rode, like most Australian girls, extremely well, and
with an unconscious grace and security of seat only to be attained by
those who, like her, had enjoyed the fullest opportunities of practice
from earliest childhood. Her dark bay mare was thoroughbred, having
been carried off by Mr. Frankston five minutes after she lost her first
race at Randwick. She had been indifferently brought out, and, as a
sporting friend said, was not fit to run for a saddle in a shearers’
sweepstakes.
Antonia had taken a strong fancy to her personal appearance, and Paul,
as usual, had then and there gratified his pet. Waratah, which was the
filly’s name, proving after trial high-couraged and temperate, had been
installed at Morahmee as the description of dumb favourite for which,
in the springtime of life, the heart of a woman is prone to crave.
On this particular afternoon it was proposed by Antonia that they
should ride to Bondi. ‘One of our show places, you must know,’ she
said; ‘and as the wind is coming in strong from the south, we shall
have the surf-thunder in perfection.’
‘Don’t ride _into_ the breakers, that’s all, as you tried to do last
time we were there; if you and Waratah were carried off your feet, your
poor old father would never see his pet again.’
‘How do you know? You silly old papa. Can’t we both swim?’ said the
girl, laying her hand tenderly on his weather-beaten cheek; ‘you will
make Mr. Neuchamp think that I’m as wild as a hawk, instead of being
the sober-minded damsel that I really am. However, you need not be
afraid of my running any foolish risks to-day.’
The morning had been clear, with that suspicion of chill which told
that at no great distance from the coast there had been a strong change
of temperature. In and around Sydney the atmospheric tendency had been
softened into a composite of warmth, tempered with freshness wonderful
to experience and exhilarating past all description.
The girl slacked the rein of her eager mare, and the excited horses
swept along the smooth, winding, dark-red road. Before them lay the
dark blue plain of ocean, fading into a misty, troubled haze which
met the far horizon. Gradually they increased their distance from the
gay gardens and villas of the more populous suburbs, the spires and
terraces of the city.
‘This has always been a favourite excursion of mine,’ said Antonia.
‘From the moment we pass Waverley and front the ocean in all his
wondrous strength and beauty, I feel as if I could shout for joy.
Morahmee is very pretty, but the harbour has always a kind of lakelike
prettiness to me; like the beds in a flower garden, while here——’
‘And here?’ said Ernest, smiling, as the southern maiden fixed her
earnest gaze upon the wide glory of the unbounded sea, with a passion
and tenderness of regard which he had never observed before.
‘Here,’ said she, ‘I feel lifted from my daily small pleasures and
_very_ minute cares into a world of thought and vision, exalted,
infinite in grandeur and richness of colouring. My mind travels
across that region of mystery and wonder which the sea has ever been
to adventurous and practical minds, and all my heroes stand visibly
presented before me.’
‘Please to introduce me,’ said Ernest.
‘I see Walter Raleigh, courtier, poet, warrior, sailor, statesman, and
can mourn over him, as though I had seen that noblest of heads upon the
cruel block but yesterday. I see Francis Drake with his crisp curls
and dauntless spirit; I see Columbus ever calm, watchful, indomitable;
Ponce de Leon, pacing up and down his lonely beach at Hispaniola, and
can fancy him setting forth upon his half-melancholy, half-ludicrous
expedition to _la fontain de jouvences_; even Bimini—oh! the many, many
friends and companions that have ever been associated with the sea in
my mind since my earliest childhood.’
‘I am afraid,’ said Ernest, translating an unacknowledged thought,
‘that you must be something like a cocoa-palm, or your own Norfolk
Island pine, unable to exist out of hearing of the sound of the sea.’
‘I never thought about that,’ answered the girl with a half-curious
look, as if back from the unreal world. ‘I have always fancied that
I would do whatever other people would do. But we all have our pet
fancies, which we spoil like children, or which spoil us, and the
prosaic part of our life has to go on notwithstanding.’
‘Have you ever seen anything of the bush?’ inquired Ernest.
‘Nothing more than a very hasty visit to one or two of the inland
towns. I have always wished to go to a real station and see something
of bush life, but papa never could spare me sufficiently long. What is
it like? All riding about, from morning to night, and being very sleepy
in the evening?’
‘There is a good deal of that,’ said he, ‘but not quite so much as
might be thought. There is a great want of books, and of the habit
of reading, in many places, though I know of course that it is not
universal. But I think when I have a place of my own that I can manage
to unite work and play, real exertion with an intellectual alternation,
and this should be the perfection of existence.’
‘I don’t see why it could not be managed,’ said Antonia. ‘Many of the
young squatters have told me that they could not get books, and that
they were becoming frightfully ignorant; but I always said it must be
their own fault. Any one who _must_ read will read, no matter what
their circumstances are.’
‘So I believe,’ answered Ernest, with most appreciative accents. ‘When
young people, or people of any age, say they have not time to read,
it sounds in my ears as if they said that they had not time to eat
their dinners, or to bathe, or say their prayers, or to talk to their
friends. For these duties and other distractions they generally find
leisure, and if the time be really fully occupied, a quarter of an hour
almost in converse with some authors would provide the mind with new
and instructive thoughts for the whole livelong day.’
‘Well, we must see how Mr. Neuchamp carries out his ideas when he has a
station of his own,’ said Antonia archly. ‘He must have everything very
nice, very superior to the ordinary ways of colonists, and must make
money also; _that_ is indispensable.’
‘I will answer for his trying to have things pleasantly and perhaps
artistically arranged,’ said Ernest, following out the sketch; ‘but
as for the making money, I have so little interest in it as one of the
fine arts, that I may fail in that.’
‘But that is the foundation of all the good deeds that you may do, so
at least papa says. If a man doesn’t make money, I heard him say once,
he shows all the world that there is some quality lacking in him, and
any little that he can say or do will not have its just weight; he is
regarded only as an unpractical, unsuccessful enthusiast.’
‘I hate the word enthusiast,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, ‘or rather the sense
of disparagement in which it is generally used. It has come to mean,
a man who is obstinately bent on a course of conduct which is wrong,
or who exaggerates the degree or importance of his practice in what is
right.’
‘I cannot say that I am particularly fond of the word or of the idea
myself, woman as I am; and you know that we are supposed to be full of
enthusiasm on every conceivable subject from parasols to politics.’
‘And why does Miss Frankston add her powerful influence to the world’s
Philistinism, already sufficient for its needs?’ asked Ernest, with a
slight tinge of satire.
‘I don’t say that I deny or distrust enthusiasm in men; and I can
imagine a sincere respect and liking for the individual to go with a
distrust of the quality, and for this reason. We may have the greatest
admiration for this lofty feeling and generous self-denial which go
to compose the character of the enthusiast; but we may smile at the
likelihood of any of his great schemes issuing in glory and success.’
‘But, surely,’ pleaded Ernest, ‘many of the great deeds which
embellish history and which have ennobled our common natures have been
nurtured in the brains, wrought out by the hands of men whom the world
call enthusiasts.’
‘Of that fact I am not so sure,’ answered Antonia. ‘I should rather
say that the successful heroes were men of steadfast nature, not
particularly acted upon by joy or despondency, whom success did not
exhilarate, nor adversity bow down; through good and evil report,
failure, or the harder trial of success, they bore themselves calmly
and strongly.’
‘But how about the sea—and the mysterious intoxication communicated
by its very appearance?’ asked Ernest mischievously. ‘Is there no
enthusiasm about such a feeling?’
‘All those sensations,’ laughed the girl, ‘belong to the ideal Antonia
Frankston, of which only a glimpse is permitted to any one from time to
time. The real Miss Frankston——’
‘What does she do?’
‘Makes puddings, keeps the household accounts, orders dinner, and has
distinct ideas on the subject of the main chance; _very_ prosaic this
last. Is not that a lovely nook, and _such_ a pretty house?’
At this turn of the subject, and the turn of the road, they had
unexpectedly come upon a villa embosomed in an almost Alpine fir grove;
the trim lawns and delicately-coloured parterres, amid which it was
placed, giving the whole place the appearance of a Watteau, framed in
sombre green.
‘It is a living picture,’ said Ernest; ‘how that wonderful
Bougainvillea has draped the whole height of the north wing of the
house; it is in full and splendid bloom, and mingled with it are
the snowy flowers of the delicate myosotis. How charmingly secluded
it is; they can look straight from their parlours across those
dwarf-walls—across the Pacific Ocean. But where is the shepherdess?’
‘There she is; do you not see that young girl sitting reading by
the fountain? Calm and untroubled she looks; she reclines upon the
low terrace facing the sea; by her side is a great vase filled with
flowers. A child with a wide sash runs out from the house towards her.
Can anything more closely realise a deep dream of peace?’
‘Nothing, indeed,’ assented Ernest admiringly. ‘I could live all
my days in such a nook, with one fair spirit to be my minister,
and perhaps defer finishing my own and other people’s education
indefinitely.’
‘Look!’ continued Antonia, ignoring the personal element, ‘with what
a bold, sweeping curve the coastline recedes; leaving the loveliest
little landlocked bay, with silver sands and a grand sandstone bluff
guarding and walling-in the farther point like a grim jealous giant.
But now we have such a piece of road, before we reach Bondi—smooth,
soft, and slightly ascending. We _must_ have a gentle breather.’
She took Waratah by the head, and slightly bending forward on her
saddle, the eager thoroughbred went away at once, causing the heart
of Mr. Neuchamp to palpitate with a nervous dread of accident. Of
course Osmund followed suit, though it gave him quite enough to do to
keep pace with the bounding, elastic stride of the well-bred flyer.
In a three-mile race he could have run Waratah hard. However, for
the half-mile spin it took a little hustling to prevent his being
distanced. At the steep ascent of the hill above the far-famed beach,
Antonia reined in her steed, which possessed the rare compromise, good
temper with high courage.
‘I suppose that our stupid scientific men will never find out any
way for us to fly,’ said she, ‘but a good gallop must be as near the
sensation as we can hope for. What a glorious feeling it is! I envy men
their hunting, perhaps more than any of their exclusive pastimes.’
‘But ladies hunt, at any rate in England,’ said Ernest, ‘and very
straight they go too.’
‘So they do, I have been told; but in Australia there are hardly enough
of us to keep one another countenance; and besides, papa does not like
it; the fences are so very dangerous.’
‘All things considered, I agree with Mr. Frankston.’
‘But what a view of views!’
They had now reached the crest of the hill, the deep-toned ceaseless
roll of the surf-billows had long been in their ears.
‘That is Bondi,’ said Antonia, pointing southward. ‘I have heard that
sound at intervals all my life. I used to dream of it when I was a
little child.’
Ernest looked southward over a rolling, rugged down, flecked with
patches of low underwood and heath, to where a broad, milk-white beach
received the vast rollers of a boundless ocean. No point or headland
broke the continuous distance of the immense dark blue plain which
stretched to the utmost boundary of vision.
It was no day of gale or tempest, but there had been sufficient wind
on this and the previous day to set in motion the unresting surges
which failed not the year through to moan and thunder upon this broad
clear shining beach. Great crags lay to the westward, shutting off
this bay from the other portions of the coast, while a projection to
the eastward tended to isolate the bay of surges. Far out, from time
to time a shining sail came from the under-world and swept placidly
towards the city, or a stately ocean steamer, with throbbing screw or
mighty paddle, left a long line of smoke trailing behind her as she
drove haughtily against wind or tide on her appointed course.
‘How one drinks in all this grandeur and loveliness of Dame Nature,’
said Ernest. ‘An instinctive constitutional craving seems satiated only
by gazing at a scene like this.’
‘I fully comprehend the condition of mind,’ said Antonia. ‘You have
been shut up at Garrandilla, where in time, except from information,
you would begin to doubt the existence of the sea altogether.’
‘It is an astonishing contrast,’ assented Mr. Neuchamp. ‘How awfully
hot it must be there now. I daresay old Doubletides is just coming in,
half melted after his day’s work, looking for lost sheep—counting one
flock, and ordering another to come in to-morrow.’
‘Surely it must be a terrible life,’ said Antonia apprehensively. ‘Is
that why people in the bush go mad sometimes?’
‘It’s hard to say. I really don’t think he or Jedwood are even dull
or distrait, or unduly impressed with the nothingness of existence. I
think very energetic people have certain advantages. Their tuglike,
unremitting habit of doing something keeps the machine going, until
some fine day a cogwheel catches, or a rivet breaks, and one more human
unit mingles its dust with the forgotten millions.’
‘Contemplation is very nice,’ said Antonia, ‘but I think it tends to
lower the spirits, whereas work of any kind, with or without a purpose,
tends to raise them; and now we must ride for it, or we shall be late
for dinner, which I know from experience does not tend to raise papa’s
spirits.’
The roads were perfect, and the kindly twilight as they swept past
the line plantations of Randwick, and adown the noble avenue which
in the future will be one of the glories of Sydney, through the wide
half-redeemed expanse of Moore Park, and so home by Woollahra, gave
them every opportunity of lengthening their _tête-à-tête_, and yet
arriving at Morahmee in time for dinner. It necessitated a hasty toilet
on both sides, but at the last notes of the bell Antonia appeared,
looking very fresh and animated after the expedition, and Ernest, whose
appetite had not yet relapsed into metropolitan apathy, looked forward
to dinner with feelings of almost youthful anticipation.
‘Well, what do you think of Bondi?’ asked the old gentleman. ‘I was
nearly drowned there when I was a youngster swimming in the surf. In
fact I _was_ drowned to all intents and purposes, except that I am here
now. I was sucked back by the undertow time after time, till I was
quite beaten. I had a few minutes’ awful struggle; then collapse and
half a minute’s choke; then lovely music in my ears; and I left the
world—as I thought—for good.’
‘You dear old naughty boy of a father,’ said Antonia, with tears half
gathering to her eye, ‘I am sure you were bathing unlawfully, like the
boys in the story-book. But what restored you to life?’
‘Well, a Maori, who happened to come up at the time in a fishing-boat.
He could _swim_.’
‘But I thought you said that you were swimming in the surf and did your
best to fight through it?’ inquired Ernest.
‘Maoris and Kanakas can _swim_’, repeated the old man sarcastically.
’White men like you and me can only paddle. Anyhow, he dived and
brought me up, and ten minutes after I was suffering the frightful
torture, “coming to.” So, as perhaps you may have guessed, I did not
die that time.’
‘Oft in danger, yet alive,
We are come to, fifty-five,’
quoted Ernest. ‘I daresay you have had all sorts of hairbreadth
escapes, if you would only tell them to us.’
‘Escapes! well, I have had a few,’ chuckled the old man. ‘Some day I
must make Antonia write them out, and we’ll publish the _Surprising
Adventures of Paul Frankston_. I wonder if I could put in some of my
stories? Ha! ha! ha! How they would laugh.’
‘I think your life would make a capital book,’ said Antonia, ‘and you
could afford to leave the stories out.’
‘Ha! well, I don’t know; some people might object; but I have seen some
queer places and people, and had some very narrow squeaks. I was a ship
boy in the _Lloyd_ when the Maoris took her at the Bay of Islands.’
‘What did they do?’ asked Ernest.
‘Do? Only murdered every living soul except a little girl and myself!
Old Parson Ramsden came down months after and ransomed us. He could
go anywhere. That little girl is a grandmother now. I could show you
such a splendid bit of tattooing just—Antonia, my dear, you needn’t be
afraid.’
‘Don’t be foolish, papa,’ said Antonia, blushing. ‘Mr. Neuchamp, he is
only joking.’
‘Joking,’ said the old man; ‘if you’d only had those patterns printed
out slowly and indelibly, like me and Mrs. Lutton, poor thing, you’d
have known it was no joke.’
‘Well, they didn’t eat you that time, at any rate,’ said Ernest, coming
to the rescue; ‘a hero can’t be killed in the first volume; and what
was the next narrow escape?’
‘Years afterwards I was cast away in the south seas, and came ashore
on a spar at an island where they’d never heard of a white man. They
had sacrifices and prayers and made a kind of lottery about whether
they should eat me; when, as luck would have it, the chief had lost his
eldest son a year before, and the priests said I was him come back. So
I was turned into a Kanaka Prince of Wales.’
‘And was the rank properly kept up?’
‘Jolliest place I ever was in, before or since; I had been starved
and shipwrecked, and I tell you it was a pleasant change; I was the
second man in the island. I had a palace, partly leaves, but cool and
pleasant. I had thirty—well—hum—ha—more attendants than I knew what to
do with. I cried, I know, when a Yankee whaler took me off six months
after. But come, this won’t do, Master Ernest, you mustn’t keep me
spinning sea-yarns all night about myself. You haven’t half told us
about your doings. Was Captain Jinks really a pleasant sort of fellow?
And how about the lock-up?’
‘Come, papa,’ said Antonia, ‘it’s hardly fair to Mr. Neuchamp to
laugh at him about that little mistake—any one might be taken in by a
nice-looking, clever, plausible man.’
‘Well, I confess,’ said Ernest boldly, ‘I _was_ taken in, though I
ought to have known better. If I had seen a seedy aristocrat in my own
country, I should not have made a travelling companion of him. But
he was very clever and good-looking, and I thought there was nothing
wonderful in such a man being out of luck in a colony.’
‘Never mind; fault on the right side,’ said Mr. Frankston—‘anything’s
better than being suspicious; you’ll cut your wisdom teeth before
you’ve done with us.’
END OF VOL. I
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Other
variations in hyphenation, spelling and punctuation remain unchanged.