Note: Project Gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work.
Volume I: see https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/54067/pg54067-images.html
Volume III: see https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/54366/pg54366-images.html
A COLONIAL REFORMER
Decoration
A
COLONIAL REFORMER
BY
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
AUTHOR OF ‘ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,’ ‘THE SQUATTER’S DREAM,’
‘THE MINER’S RIGHT,’ ETC.
_IN THREE VOLUMES_
VOL. II
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1890
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XV
Mr. Neuchamp was disposed to be wroth with himself when he discovered
that he was looking forward with considerable interest to a
much-talked-of ball, by which the Count von Schätterheims had resolved
to mark his appreciation of the kindness which he had received at the
hands of the Sydney ‘upper ten.’ Why should he feel gratified, Ernest
asked himself, at the prospect of joining in an entertainment at best
but a _réchauffé_ of numberless affairs of the class which he had
assisted at and despised in England? A ball―a mere ball―a stale
repetition of the meaningless crust―the saltatory, amatory, and
gustatory simulacra of pleasure, which he had long since renounced and
abandoned. An entertainment chiefly composed of people he didn’t know,
and given by a man whom he did not like.
He finally disposed of the affair in his own mind by the summary, if
illogical, decision, that he must regard himself, in respect of his
late banishment from the world, in the light of a sailor after a
protracted cruise, gifted with abnormal powers of assimilation and
digestion, mental and physical.
Even in moments of sternest self-analysis men are not infrequently
insincere and evasive. Perchance not consciously. Were the moral
processes incapable of such inflections, Ernest Neuchamp could never
have concealed the fact from himself that he chiefly wished to attend
this much-abused festivity, to which he had received a formal and
ornate card, inclusive of the arms and crest of the noble family of Von
Schätterheims, because it would be graced by the presence of Antonia
Frankston.
Ernest did not find the very excellent dinner of which he partook at
the club on the evening of the ball in any degree less palatable
because of this mental conflict. He arrayed himself in the wampum and
warpaint proper for such engagements as manufactured by Mr. Poole, of
Saville Row, which decorations indeed had narrowly escaped being left
behind as a superfluous part of his outfit at Neuchampstead. After a
careful toilet he awaited in a slightly unphilosophical state of mind
the arrival of the Frankston carriage, which was to call for him.
Punctually at ten the highly effective bays contributed their
particular quota of gravel-scratching to the enormous aggregate of road
friction which pervaded Sydney on that night, and Mr. Neuchamp, placed
opposite to a wrapped and draped cloud of diaphanous material, which he
conjectured to be a young lady, and most probably Antonia, from the
similarity of voice, was whirled off towards the gate of happiness.
Before they could approach that enchanted portal they became sensible
of a line of lamp lit vehicles apparently several miles long, at the
remote end of which they were compelled to await the gradual debouching
of the leading files. The opportunity was favourable for conversation,
and Miss Frankston having disengaged apparently so much of her envelope
as permitted free egress to her words, they commenced―
‘What a lovely night! I was so afraid it would rain. I am sure it will
be the most delightful ball we have ever had. I feel certain I shall
enjoy myself immensely. It is ages since I have been to a dance.’
‘I hope your anticipations may be realised,’ quoth Ernest. ‘Captain
Cook was here, I think, when I last went to one. I had ceased to think
them rational amusements long before I left home.’
‘Oh! but then you are really dissipated in England, if what we hear of
a London season be correct,’ said Antonia. ‘Two or three balls a night,
and some engagement at least once every night. What girl could stand
that? Now we poor colonists have perhaps two or three a month in our
gayest time, and now and then, as now, one in half a year.’
‘Well, doubtless the degree of dissipation makes some difference,’ said
Mr. Neuchamp, ‘and I do not mind owning that I feel as I used to feel;
as Hood’s seamstress says, before I knew the words of “drums and
matinées, crushes and staircase charges, with all the melancholy melée
of supper, when nobody could eat if they had any appetite, or could
have appetite if they would eat.”’
‘You are not in a very promising state of mind,’ said Antonia, ‘so I
think I can provide you with plenty of real dancing, if you wish,
plenty of nice partners, not anything dangerous in the way of crush;
and if you take me in to supper, I will guarantee you something to
eat.’
‘Well done,’ said Paul; ‘I’ll back you up in all you have said. Ernest
will see no end of nice girls, who will dance him off his legs, unless
he’s very fit indeed; I think the music isn’t bad, and Dettmann
generally gives you something worth eating, and, more particularly,
drinking. I’m the man to be pitied.’
‘Why, you naughty papa?’ said the veiled figure.
‘Because just about this time I ought to be smoking my third cigar, and
going peacefully to bed, whereby I should wake up with a clear head, a
good appetite, and a strong idea that I was going to make some money
before noon; instead of which, to-morrow morning, most probably, I
shall be slightly feverish, eat no breakfast, and have a general
conviction that stocks are going down, discounts rising, and the
country going to the bad generally.’
‘Not if you play whist steadily with old Mr. Howler, the Colonel, and
Dr. Whyte; get the Colonel for a partner, and you’ll be sure to win.’
‘That’s all very well,’ said the sacrificial parent, ‘but five or six
hours are not so easy to dispose of at sixty odd. I foresee that I
shall eat and drink imprudently, catch cold, have a highly unpleasant
next morning, with a hint of indigestion, bile, and lumbago.’
‘How differently pleasure affects us, at sixteen and sixty,’ observed
Ernest with an air of solemn conviction.
‘I call that very cruel,’ said Antonia. ‘I always want papa to let me
go with Mrs. Evergreen, but he prefers to martyrise himself, like a
dear old papa as he is.’
‘Well, perhaps he likes to look at his little girl enjoying herself,’
said old Paul. ‘I can weather it out yet, perhaps better than I say. I
was fond enough of fun myself, and have had some strange dances in
strange places, with strange company. I remember once――’
‘Come, papa!’ said the veiled prophetess warningly.
‘Well, only this one; we shall soon be out. I was once down in New
Zealand, in the old times, long enough ago, before the gold and the
Government, and just as we went ashore at Motiki we heard that the
principal Pakeha-Maori, an old sea-captain of course, was going to give
a dance and a grand spread. We were wild for fun of course; been out
thirteen months. Well, the old boy, a grizzled, hard-weather-looking
old sea-dog, asked us all, captain, supercargo, and officers.’
‘I daresay it was very characteristic,’ said Ernest; ‘what were the
ladies like?’
‘Well, a majority of the wives and daughters of the British settlers
were Maoris. It was very rich land, and old Blackbeard had secured a
considerable slice. He had a Maori wife, and ever so many daughters.
The youngest was a great beauty, splendid eyes, such a figure, and so
on; I was quite a youngster, and bashful, so I said to the old skipper,
“Please introduce me to your youngest daughter, Captain Blackbeard.”
The old pirate looked at me for a minute from under his grizzled
eyebrows, and then growled out―“How do you suppose I introduced myself
to her mother? go and hail the craft yourself”―which I did, and I never
wish――’
‘Papa!’ said Antonia, with great distinctness of intonation. ‘Here we
are at the step. Please go first, and you will give me room to
extricate myself.’
Mr. Frankston delivered himself upon the carpet spread from hall to
staircase with an adroitness which seemed a reminiscence of old
seamanship, and following Miss Frankston and her father, Mr. Neuchamp
entered the first ballroom in Australia which had been honoured by his
presence.
Close to the door of a nobly proportioned, brilliantly lighted,
profusely decorated, and extremely well-filled apartment, stood their
noble friend and host, gorgeously attired in the uniform of a colonel
of Landwehr, and shining like a constellation of the first magnitude
among the more unpretending naval and regimental officers then
quartered and stationed at Sydney.
As he took the hand of Miss Frankston, and bowed low over it, with an
assumption of chivalrous deference, only permitted to a foreigner,
Ernest felt a mad desire to then and there kick him down the stairs of
his own ballroom. Controlling this perhaps not strictly defensible
impulse, he drew back, as the Count shook Paul’s hand with a delicate
yet cordial deference appropriate to an honoured father in prospect,
and evidently, to that nobleman’s astonishment, bowed very stiffly and
followed his friends. A large family party, including half a dozen
smiling and whispering girls, evidently delighted by the cordial
welcome they experienced from their distinguished entertainer, covered
his retreat. The night was superbly beautiful. At no great distance lay
the slumbering sea-lake; while over the silver plain clusters of
glancing lights gleamed, beneath the broad illuminated balcony of the
ballroom. Unless Ernest’s heart had been much more ill at ease than
circumstances rendered possible, it would have been hard at his time of
life for aught but pleasure, for a little space, to bear sway.
The floor was perfection; the music, that of a military band, which had
but the year before played in the great square at Pera, which had been
at the front during the terrible northern campaign, yet fresh in men’s
minds, well coached by a music-loving, fastidious colonel, was pealing
out the ‘Schöner blauer Donau’ with wondrous time and spirit.
Mr. Neuchamp had been sufficiently awake to his opportunities to engage
Antonia for the first _deux-temps valse_ after they entered the room,
and the after-supper galop, taking his chance of anything intermediate.
‘That is good music,’ said he; ‘I heard it in Vienna last. Suppose we
join these very sincere performers.’
Antonia replied by a frank smile of assent, and as he took one
comprehensive glance over face and figure ere he clasped the slight
yielding waist, he thought he had consistently underrated her beauty.
The light was of course eminently favourable to her clear though
colourless complexion; her eyes, sparkling with frank unstudied
enjoyment of the entertainment, shone with unwonted lustre, while the
perfection of her slight but rounded figure was clearly apparent; and
as they swept adown the crowded hall Mr. Neuchamp, though he had not
been numbered among the lavender-kid-wearing tribe of modern youth of
late years, danced very well, and we may add looked very well, in that
much-abused, but as yet unsuperseded garb, than which no other befits
so well a gentleman on evening pleasure bent. Perhaps we have not
devoted sufficient space heretofore to the limning of the hero’s
personal charms and graces. These were perhaps sufficient though not
remarkable.
Ernest Neuchamp, somewhat above the middle height, had, without any
particular athletic ostentation, the square form and well-knit figure
of an ordinary English aristocrat. Though possessing more endurance
than strength, he by no means fell short of that necessary endowment.
One saw fairly regular features, comprising a pair of searching grayish
blue eyes, very multiform as to expression, a clear-cut firm mouth, and
light-brown hair inclining to curl, which I need not say was very
closely cut on the present occasion. Brown-bearded, and rather
sunburned, as to his original delicate complexion, he was by no means a
bad representation, had he donned armour, of one of his crusading
ancestors just returned from Ascalon or Engadi with all the prestige of
a good knight and a whole heart for the ladye-fayre, who awaited his
coming amid her bower-maidens.
As it was he was restricted to the simple dress, the simple speech, of
a modern English gentleman, yet was there about him a freshness,
sincerity, and unassumed refinement of manner not unlike that of the
best class of naval men, which made him extremely acceptable to women,
and which Antonia Frankston in her heart of hearts had always
recognised.
The dance was not a particularly short one. Ernest was in reasonably
good training after his up-country experience, and Antonia was one of
those rare―too rare danseuses that unite in perfection time, pace,
grace, and staying power. She could fly down the crowded ballroom
properly supported by a partner _de la première force_, halt, turn,
glide in and amid the labyrinth of dancers, without thought or question
of collision. Instinctively true to every note of the music, to every
movement of her partner, she seemed as if she possessed the latent
power and tireless speed of Atalanta of old, did she but deign to exert
them.
The music ceased, annotated by a very audible sigh on the part of
Ernest, who was impelled to say that he never expected to enjoy a dance
again so much as long as he lived.
‘There is nothing like dancing,’ said Antonia, apparently as cool as a
statuette. ‘But I think the balcony will be pleasanter. I must show you
all the people.’
In their path was a portly white-waistcoated personage of placid and
smiling aspect, who, bestowing upon Antonia a most respectful bow,
shook Ernest’s hand warmly.
‘Ah, Neuchamp, my dear fellow, delighted to see you. Not bought a run
yet? You’re losing splendid opportunities. Let Gammon Downs slip
through your fingers―eh? Sold it to Rawson and Rowdy since. Great
bargain.’
‘Indeed!’ said Ernest, smiling. ‘Well, they are the best judges of
their own line of action. How are they doing? Making lots of money?’
‘Well, they ought to―ought to―but I’m afraid they’re not very good
managers. Rawson’s rather slow―Rowdy’s too fast. However, I can’t help
that. Do you happen to want a crack run, my dear Neuchamp? I’ve got
Brigalow Park and Mallee Meadows for sale, a real bargain; quite a――’
‘Not just at present,’ said Ernest, preparing to move past. ‘See you at
the club. The Count seems to be enjoying himself―who is the lady?’ This
last observation was elicited by the appearance of the noble host, who
passed at a little distance with a very handsome and magnificently
dressed girl upon his arm, talking in the most _empressé_ manner; while
she, conscious of being at that moment an object of envy to the great
majority of her sex, there and then present, listened with apparent
pleasure.
‘Oh, that’s Miss Folleton, of Fairmount. Fine girl, isn’t she? Will
have forty thousand on her wedding-day,’ said Selmore, who knew
everybody and everything; or said he did, which was much the same. ‘Not
that Von Schätterheims cares for that. Immense property of his own,
vast estates in Silesia, nearly as many sheep as Esterhazy―- that’s why
he comes out here. Thinks of investing―met him abroad myself.’
‘Indeed,’ said Ernest; ‘haven’t you anything that will suit him?’
‘Well,’ said Selmore, looking, for him, slightly confused and glancing
at Antonia, who was regarding him critically, ‘I told him that Mallee
Meadows and the other place might suit him, but he wants a resident
partner. How would you like to go in with him? You’re just the man that
would suit him.’
‘Can’t bear partners,’ replied Ernest shortly; ‘I am afraid his
highness and I wouldn’t agree. I think I see a seat, Miss Frankston.’
‘I dislike that man intensely,’ said Antonia, as they moved on. ‘I
think him so selfish and unprincipled. I wonder if he has inveigled the
Count into one of his bargains, as he calls them?’
‘From a cursory examination of your high-born friend’s conversation,’
said Ernest, ‘I think he may be trusted to take care of himself in
matters of finance, as indeed is the case with most foreigners.’
‘Now, is not that a very prejudiced though English speech? You cannot
really believe that because a man is born on the continent of Europe he
must be less trustworthy than any one from that wonderful little island
of yours?’
‘I didn’t say so; I ought to qualify such a wholesale sentiment.
Whether the right sort of foreigner does not emigrate I cannot tell.
But the idea has struck others besides myself, and I must confess to a
“Dr. Fell” sort of instinctive feeling about our distinguished friend.’
‘Sheer prejudice and perhaps the least bit of jealousy, shall I say, on
your part,’ continued Antonia.
‘But why jealousy?’
‘Well, I mean it to apply to all of you men who run down the poor Count
so. _We_ are all great admirers of him, and that, I am afraid, does not
make him popular with your sex. Here’s Mr. Croker coming to claim me
for the next dance. There now, he’ll abuse him―but he does that about
everybody. Are you sure that this is our dance?’ mischievously
commenced the young lady, as that gentleman arrived.
‘I think so,’ said Croker superciliously, ‘unless you have a chance of
the Count, in which case of course you’ll throw me and Neuchamp over―I
expect nothing else.’
‘Not surely if I were engaged to Mr. Jermyn Croker!’ said she; and
looking at her programme, ‘I really am engaged to you for the
quadrille, but why am I accused of pursuing the Count von
Schätterheims?’
‘Because every one runs after him―men, women, and children,’ said
Croker. ‘The whole city seems transformed into a sort of Bedlam.’
‘But why do they run after him?’ inquired Miss Frankston.
‘Why?’ repeated Mr. Croker, with an air of ineffable disdain, ‘because
they’re all fools, I suppose; except a few, a very few.’
‘And why are they excepted?’ said Ernest, who commenced to be amused at
his daring unsparing cynicism.
‘Because they’re mad―stark, staring mad.’
‘Now really, Mr. Croker, don’t you believe about the Count’s great
wealth and estates? his charming manner at any rate can’t be put on.’
‘_I_ believe in him. _I?_’ demanded Croker, with an air of intense and
reproachful amazement ludicrous to witness. ‘Do you know what my
opinion of the fellow is?’
‘Can’t say, really; something very complimentary to him and diffident
on your part, judging from Mr. Croker’s well-known character,’ said
Antonia coolly.
‘Well, then, if you will have it,’ said that satirist wrathfully, and
as if all necessity for social dissimulation had been obviated, ‘I
believe the fellow is an impostor and a swindler; very likely a valet,
or a courier, who has bolted with his master’s cash, clothes, and
papers. As for his manners, everybody in the country he comes from has
the same manner, from the kellner to the kaiser. His accent ought to
betray him; but no one here knows German well enough to find it out.’
‘Really, Mr. Croker, you can take away a man’s, a horse’s, or a
country’s reputation more completely in less time than any one I ever
met. You’re so delightfully bitter that I _must_ dance with you. Come
along!’
Left to himself for a while, Mr. Neuchamp devoted his leisure to a
survey of the room and the company. He was astonished at the beauty and
grace of the lady portion of the guests, and he thought he had never
seen anything more graceful than the ease and celerity with which the
greater part of the crowd glided in the dance over the polished floor.
The occasional squatter, lounging, but stalwart and dignified, together
with the gay uniforms of the soldiers and blue-jackets, gave novelty
and contrast to the scene; but the majority of the younger men who
belonged to Sydney proper were pale, slight, and rather undignified
youngsters, by no means worthy the handsome, stately girls who were
fain to accept them as partners. For the rest, the ordinary ballroom
routine was not departed from; and Ernest, after another dance or two,
was not sorry when the move to supper reminded him to possess himself
of Antonia, who had promised him the first following dance.
Nothing in its way could have been more complete than the dangerous and
superfluous but fascinating meal. The wines were chosen with a studious
care, which reflected the greatest honour upon the Count’s taste and
foresight.
The champagne and chicken had been succeeded by fruit and flirtation.
The ladies were in expectation of the accustomed signal, when Mr.
Hartley Selmore rose, ‘with the permission of his friends, to make a
few observations and to propose a toast. Would gentlemen―ay, and ladies
too―fill their glasses, and prepare themselves for a toast to which his
poor powers were miserably inadequate?’
These preliminary suggestions were cheerfully complied with, as indeed
is invariably the case, the cheapest of all compliments being, surely,
to drink another glass of wine at the expense of your entertainer.
Then, with one hand in the breast of his ample waistcoat, Mr. Selmore
smilingly confronted the expectant throng, and with the readiness of a
born talker and something of the ease of a trained orator, thus
delivered himself:―
Ladies and Gentlemen―One of the first observations that we shall make
when we leave this hall will assuredly be that we never spent a
pleasanter night in our lives, never saw any festivity more perfect in
the arrangement of every detail, never had the good fortune to accept
more lavish and splendid yet delicate and graceful hospitality. Then
why not say it now? (Cheers and approbation.) Frankly, then, even in
the presence of the noble and distinguished personage who has honoured
this colony, this city, this society, with his presence, I venture to
avow the sentiment of my heart, of every heart, let me say, now beating
responsively to these humble expressions of the general feeling. (Loud
cheering.) Some of us may have been struck with the wonderful
perfection which has accompanied every detail, however small, even to
the novel arrangement of the matchless feast we have just arisen from;
but who does not know that the master mind, which is capable of
conceptions the most vast and varied with regard to the welfare of
nations or the march of armies, disdains not to stoop to the peasant’s
farm, to the soldier’s shoe-buckle.
When I lead your minds, ladies and gentlemen, to the idea of the
characteristics of great generals, of reigning princes, of the
blood-royal of one of the most ancient sovereignties of the universe,
am I violating any confidence when I state, in corroboration of that
half involuntary disclosure, that no one who, like myself, has had the
privilege of beholding those royal personages, of marking their
prevailing type of feature, can doubt, by comparison with the
countenance of our noble entertainer, the Count von Schätterheims, of
his near and intimate relationship with that royal house. (Tremendous
and enthusiastic cheering, with direction of all eyes upon the Count,
whose presumably princely lineaments were as immovably unconscious as
if he had been a statue of Kaiser Fritz.)
I may be indiscreet, ladies and gentlemen; I may, carried away by my
natural feelings of friendship and by the contagion of your
enthusiastic assent to my simple and straightforward statements, have
spoken with more frankness than prudence, but my heart forgives me; my
noble friend, I feel assured, forgives me; and you, ladies and
gentlemen, will, under the circumstances, forgive me also. I have the
liveliest pleasure in proposing the health of the Count von
Schätterheims.
When the storm of cheering, the volleys of applause, the waving of
handkerchiefs, had subsided, the noble Count himself, rather pale, but
collected and calm as of custom, rose in his place to return thanks,
which feat he performed as follows:―
Latees and Gendlemens―Many very danks.
The return speech had the merit of brevity―perhaps in excess; but as
the Count placed his hand on his heart and bowed low thrice, throwing
all the expression (and that was a considerable allowance) that he
could manage into his eyes, so directed that not only Miss Folleton,
but at least six other young ladies, imagined that she alone was the
object of those tender and pleading glances, it suddenly struck the
assembled crowd that it was an intentional and masterly stroke of
mingled humour and consideration. As the band, by preconcerted signal,
struck up the glorious and entrancing galop which had been kept in
reserve for the after-supper dance, the ladies and the younger men saw
another instance of the Count’s marvellous foresight―for them in
particular―and once more they joined in general and unmeasured
applause.
The Count, who had by this time secured the radiant Miss Folleton,
bowed low and led the way to the freshly decorated ballroom, all the
approaches to which were filled with the choicest exotics.
Was not it an utterly perfect galop, such as that entrancing
after-supper dream-dance with the ‘dear new angel,’ or our favourite
friend that used to be, ‘Consule Planco’? Oh, the dances of our lost
youth, realising in every gliding sweep and trancing whirl the most
exalted conceptions of music, poetry, choregraphic grace, and
intoxicating proximity to female loveliness, when, if at any time
possible, a fold or two of the jealous marble of reserve is thrown
back. Within a fast fleeting hour from this dance of dances did Mr.
Neuchamp put Miss Frankston into the carriage attended by her grateful
parent, who was truly tired of his life under circumstances of
festivity, and dying to get to bed.
‘Ha! Neuchamp,’ said Croker, as he returned to the disenchanted
ballroom, ‘you look exhausted. Come and have a parting glass of the
Count’s Roederer. I stick to that; we shall never see any more of it, I
feel sure.’
‘Why?’ demanded Ernest; ‘you’re rather hard upon our noble entertainer.
You allow that his wine is very good.’
‘Good wine costs no more than bad under certain circumstances,’ replied
Croker sardonically.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ernest.
‘Mean! Why, that Yorick and Co. will never see a farthing of their
money. I really feel uneasy about our share in the swindle,’ continued
Croker, filling a large glass with iced hock, then drinking it slowly
and with great apparent relish.
‘Great heavens!’ ejaculated Ernest, ‘I can’t believe it. I won’t taste
a drop. And what do you suppose will happen to Von Schätterheims?’
‘The devil only knows, who will probably stick to him for a season
staunchly enough. He will make a bolt, or a warrant of extradition,
including an assassination and two stupendous jewel robberies, will
fetch him.’
‘You are strongly prejudiced,’ said Ernest, deeply shocked and ashamed
of his own mild suspicions.
‘Slightly so, perhaps; it runs in my family. I detest _all_ foreigners,
and believe them to be capable of anything.’
‘That’s rather hard measure, don’t you think?’
‘Not at all,’ said Croker, finishing the wine. ‘Foreigners are not so
madly given to travel as we fools of English people; take my word for
it, no foreigner of character and position would come out to an
infernal hole of a place like this colony. Your friend Paul seems
shaky, slightly apoplectic, or perhaps complaint in the _chest_; half
those mercantile beggars are shams. Daughter gone off very much, looks
quite _passée_. Good-night; I’m off.’
With these few consoling remarks, which Ernest felt much inclined to
resent by personal protest, Mr. Jermyn Croker betook himself to the
smoking-room of the New Holland, whence, having abused the ball, the
guests, the giver, the lights, the decorations, everything, in fact,
but the wine, of which he certainly had secured his share, he departed
to bed in a consistently uncharitable state of mind with all men.
Paul did not show up at the office next day, and as the afternoon had
been fixed for boat-sailing, as a refreshing and suitable recreation to
neutralise the somewhat reactionary season which succeeds a ball,
Ernest made his way to Morahmee soon after lunch.
There he found Antonia very becomingly dressed in yachting costume,
which from its simplicity afforded a telling contrast to the _grande
tenue_ of the previous night. Paul, with a couple of sailor-looking
men, was down at the jetty, and after a little preliminary trimming and
delay in sending for extra ballast, they were all seated and skimming
over the bright waters of the harbour, with a light but favourable
breeze. Mr. Windsor, invited by particular request of Mr. Frankston,
sat forward in company with the crew, and assumed an air of ease and
satisfaction which that roamer of the waste was as far from feeling as
a pilgrim Bedouin on board a Red Sea steamer.
But no thoughts, save of the most childishly unalloyed happiness,
possessed the hearts of Paul Frankston and his daughter. The old man
was a born and bred sea-dog, and it was wondrous to mark how his nature
rose and became exalted as he found himself upon the familiar element
on which the joyous time of youth, the _sturm und drang_ period of his
strong manhood, had been passed. Again his eye lightened, and the old
gleam of pride and daring spoke from it of the days when he had
volunteered for more than one maritime forlorn hope; had consorted
gaily with danger; had dared the clubs, the poisoned arrows of cannibal
savages; or had cowed a mutinous, scowling crew by the magic of a stern
front and a steady pistol. Even his voice was altered, and he gave the
slight but necessary orders in a clear peremptory tone of command which
Ernest had never heard from his lips before.
For Antonia, she revelled in the free breeze, the brilliant sea and
sky, like a happy child, and as a glancing spray fell lightly over
them, she carolled forth the refrain of a sea song with a nerve and
animation by no means usual.
‘Is not this lovely fresh life a renewal of all one’s senses?’ she
cried. ‘I feel as if an additional one, indescribable and amazing, was
given to me whenever I am on blue water. You know we are all great
sailors and boatmen in this Sydney harbour of ours. Look at the numbers
of skiffs, pleasure boats, and yachts that are now skimming about like
seamews in all directions.’
‘Rather too many for my fancy. Every now and then accidents occur,
plain sailing as everything looks just now. The gusts which come down
across these points are like small white squalls.’
‘Ah! but the present, my darling old pappy,’ sighed Antonia, ‘what can
possibly be more glorious for mere mortals? Why should we grieve
ourselves with the past or possible sorrows? Can anything be more
dreamily lovely than that pale amber sky over which the dark blue
shadow is creeping from the headland? What can surpass the
softly-gliding magical motion with so much swiftness and so little
effort? I don’t wonder that a sea life has always gathered to it so
much poetry and romance. I fell in love with a pirate once.’
‘With a pirate? Where?’ exclaimed Ernest, surprised out of the placid
enjoyment which pervaded the whole party.
‘In a book, of course,’ answered she; ‘you didn’t think we entertained
such gallant rovers at Morahmee, except, like angels, unawares? But he
was such a delightful creature. I remember the lines still.’
‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind repeating them.’
‘Oh yes. I shall never forget them, I am sure,’ the girl answered,
looking seawards. ‘I found them in an old―old―annual. You shall judge:―
‘Our Captain, he is young and fair,
How can he look so young?
His locks of youth, his golden hair,
Are o’er his shoulders flung.
‘Of all the deeds that he has done
Not one has left a trace,
The midnight cup, the noontide sun
Has darken’d not his face.
‘His voice is low, his smile is sweet,
He has a girl’s blue eyes,
And yet far rather would I meet
The storm in yonder skies.
‘The fiercest of our pirate band
Holds, at his name, the breath;
For there is blood on his right hand,
And in his heart is death.
‘He knows he rides upon his grave,
Yet careless is his eye;
He looks with scorn upon the wave,
With scorn upon the sky.’
‘Not a bad conception, I admit,’ said Ernest, ‘though, doubtless,
violently untrue to nature. In all ages poets and romance writers, who
are humbugs to a man, have laboured to unite personal beauty and
winning gentleness of manner with the capacity for remorseless crime. I
think, perhaps, that the young Spaniard in _Tom Cringle’s Log_ is as
good a specimen of the thoroughbred upstanding pirate as any of those
gentry whose acquaintance I have made, like you, in print.’
‘I saw eight-and-thirty of the ruffians strung up in one day, at a
Spanish West Indian port, once,’ said Paul. ‘They said their prayers,
kissed their crucifixes, and died in the coolest and most edifying
way.’
‘And were they very bad men, papa?’
‘Awful scoundrels,’ said her father, with a certain relish, as he
recalled the reminiscence. ‘We only escaped them by a miracle; so I
felt no compunction in seeing them elevated.’
‘And what became of the ship they did capture?’ inquired Antonia.
‘They took everything of value from the vessel, including a few
prisoners they meant to ransom, and then scuttled her, leaving the crew
and passengers to perish.’
‘How fiendish! and they were nearly catching my darling old father,’
exclaimed the girl. ‘I must reconsider the question of pirates. But
were they all as bad as that, papa?’
‘Worse, if possible,’ said Mr. Frankston uncompromisingly. ‘They knew
that there was a rope ready for each man’s neck when he was caught, and
this knowledge did not incline them to mercy, you may be sure. Chinamen
are perhaps as dangerous rascals, in that line, as you can meet. They
are no great sailors; but if you get becalmed in their waters, and a
few crowded prahus come round you, your chance is a bad one.’
‘And will they fight?’ inquired Ernest. ‘I thought one jack-tar was
worth a dozen of them.’
‘So they are in one way―in a fair fight, or in a case of boarding, or
in bad weather. But these vagabonds are very careless of life. They
never give quarter and don’t care much about taking it, not being used
to it, so you may imagine how they fight. I have seen a fellow fairly
cut to pieces before he left off fighting, and I really believed―I was
a boy then―that the kriss moved in his clenched hand after the arm was
cut off.’
‘In that case they may trouble the world yet,’ affirmed Ernest. ‘A
nation of three hundred millions, with sufficient ingenuity to
comprehend Whitworth and Snider, and animal courage to fight to the
death, might execute another avalanche movement such as when Attila (of
kindred blood, we must remember) swept over Europe.’
‘Not in our time, at any rate,’ quoth Paul, with epicurean
indifference. ‘Ah Tin will require a deal of drill before that march
takes place. Now, then, here we are off Red Point. Suppose we get the
lines out and have some fishing.’
The deep-sea lines were produced by the two ‘waterside characters’ who
composed the crew, and suitable bait being forthcoming from some
mysterious receptacle, the somewhat serious recreation of
schnapper-fishing commenced. Perhaps the poetry of the piscatory art
cannot be dissociated from the mimic ephemera with which the fisherman
of Europe deceives the leaping trout and the king of all river fish,
the mighty salmon, as the angler standing under the ruined wall of a
Norman stronghold, patiently whips the purling stream which has
furnished relays of delicate fare for a thousand years. Nor is his
sport heightened by historic association. The captor of _Salmo salar_
passes from stage to stage of doubt, hope, fear, agony, despair, to
unspeakable triumph, as after endless patient playing, he draws within
reach of the deadly gaff the captive monarch. But, Izaak Walton
notwithstanding, a good afternoon’s fishing in or off Sydney harbour,
when the deep-sea denizens are fain and fearless, is not to be
despised.
Mr. John Windsor was considerably surprised, though he was careful not
to show it, as the first fish, a twelve-pound schnapper, came up
glancing and glimmering through the clear water at the end of Mr.
Frankston’s line. A rock-cod or two, with their brilliant colouring,
added to his wondering observation. But he was, perhaps, more nearly
driven from his habitual coolness when a yard-long dogfish was dropped
into the bottom of the boat, sufficiently near his legs to cause the
lower portions of those limbs to shrink and stiffen, as the
ocean-Ishmaelite snapped its sharp teeth within an inch of his ankles.
‘I think we must have got about half a boat load,’ said Paul at length,
after a continuous course of baiting, lowering, and hauling up. ‘As the
day is so fine, we may go through the Heads for a run out, and then
turn back and beat home.’
They glided through the comparatively narrow entrance, on either side
of which frowns sullenly the vast sandstone promontory, seamed,
channelled, and scarped by winter wind and ocean wave, that for ages
have raved and dashed against its sentinel form. Southward a mile or
two, and still the deep sea rolls on with slow but resistless force
against the base of the tremendous, all inaccessible cliffs which frown
a hundred fathoms above.
‘I never pass this place,’ said Antonia musingly, ‘without thinking of
that heartrending wreck of the _Dunbar_. A wreck, at best, is a
dreadful thing; but think of these poor creatures, as near to their
journey’s end as we are now, only to find a death in the midst of angry
breakers and rocks and the dread midnight. How many deaths must they
have died! God save us all from a fate like this―
‘On the reef of Norman’s woe.’
‘I did hear something about a vessel going on shore with all hands,
near the Heads,’ said Ernest. ‘And was this the very place? Was there
any carelessness?’
‘Poor Grant was as good a seaman as ever trod plank. I knew him well,’
said Mr. Frankston. ‘He had been first mate of her for years, under old
Fleetby, and this was his second voyage in command. He was as smart a
man as Charley Carryall, and that is saying a good deal.’
‘What was the cause, then, of the disaster? It seems so near the port
of entrance.’
‘It wasn’t weather like this, you may be sure,’ said Paul. ‘Unluckily,
after a first-class run, poor Grant made the light, sometime after
nightfall, on as misty, driving, dirty a night as ever these old rocks
saw. He stood off and on until an hour or so past midnight, when,
finding the gale increasing and the wind setting in dead inshore, he
determined to run for the Heads, trusting to his own seamanship and his
close knowledge of the channel, that he had passed through a score of
times in all weathers, at all hours of day and night.’
‘But how could he miss the proper opening?’ asked Ernest.
‘God knows! The weather was awful. The coast just here does change
shape a little, as if there was an opening. The ship had been driven in
too close ashore; if they saw the lighthouse, her course would bring
her stem on to these awful rocks. It seems that they never knew their
mistake till they were among the breakers.’
‘And how could that be known?’
‘_One_ man was saved,’ answered Paul. ‘The last thing he saw of poor
Grant was forward, in the chains. That was just before she struck. When
she did strike she must have gone to pieces in ten minutes, and two
hundred passengers, who were dreaming of home and friends, or the sweet
sight of shore with the morning sun, ere that sun rose were drifting or
mangled corpses.’
‘What a day of mourning it was in Sydney!’ said Antonia; ‘hardly a
family in the city but had friends or relations on board. A favourite
ship, with a favourite captain, numbers of returning colonists had
waited or hurried in order to sail by her.’
‘We must all take our chances, my dear, more particularly those people
who are foolish enough to be sailors. Hector Grant met a sailor’s
death, and I’ll swear he took his lot coolly when it came, caring more
for the poor passengers than himself. For them it was different. I
always pitied the landsmen and their families, when I stood a fair
chance of going to Davy Jones myself. Hallo! the wind’s shifted two
points. There’s an ugly bank, too. It will give us enough to do to get
home before the southerly breeze comes up.’
As they commenced to beat back against the breeze, which, appearing to
gain strength rapidly, necessitated rather more promptness and
seamanship than their outward-bound voyaging had required, Ernest was
constrained to admire the coolness and total absence of timidity which
Miss Frankston displayed.
Doubtless she was accustomed to boat-sailing and yachting in all its
various forms, and was familiar with the eccentricities of the harbour
navigation. Still, as the breeze freshened, the sky darkened, and from
time to time the spray broke over the tiny cutter, now leaning over
till the gunwale dipped, in a manner that did not suit Jack Windsor at
all, as the thought obtruded itself that if the southerly gale, which
Paul Frankston’s experienced eye looked for, broke over them before
they reached the shelter of the solid Morahmee pier they might possibly
founder. Ernest wondered if his fair companion fully realised her
position, or whether her calm indifference was merely ignorance of the
danger.
His mind was set at rest upon the point presently.
‘Papa!’ she said, looking first at the sky and then at the merchant,
who, with all the skipper in his stern set face and steady eye, was
looking to windward not altogether cheerfully, ‘don’t you think we
shall be hard set to get home before the “brickfielder” fall upon us?’
‘I do indeed, darling,’ said the old man. ‘I wish I had been keeping my
weather eye open, instead of gossiping about the _Dunbar_ people, poor
souls. For all we know, we may make another business of the same sort,
in a small way.’
‘Then don’t you think we might carry more sail? You know poor little
_Haidée_ here will let you drive her under almost when she’s on a wind,
and a knot an hour more may make all the difference.’
‘I think Miss is right, sir,’ said the oldest of the crew, ‘we’ve not a
minute to throw away; and if it ain’t coming up heavier and thicker
from the south, my name ain’t Johnny Jones.’
As the necessary dispositions were made, Antonia watched keenly and
critically the altered motion of the boat, which lay down to the now
angry sea, as if every fresh gust would bury her beneath the heaving
billow; and having apparently satisfied herself that the maximum of
speed, combined with the smallest possible margin of safety, had been
attained, lay back and quietly awaited the progress of events.
‘Hers is no soulless insensibility to danger,’ thought Mr. Neuchamp to
himself. ‘Rather a full comprehension of risk, and even not improbable
loss, dominated by the calm courage which wills and reasons in the face
of death.
‘A perfect woman nobly planned
To――’
Mr. Neuchamp was prevented from continuing his quotation by a sudden
ejaculation of Mr. Windsor, across whose person, as the boat dipped
deeply, a wave of greater magnitude than usual broke and foamed.
‘By the powers!’ exclaimed he, ‘this was never put down in the
agreement, or John Windsor wouldn’t have been here. Are you quite sure,
sir, we ain’t taking a short cut, and getting away from our regular
track? I should like to get out of this trap and walk. I can swim
though above a bit, so if we are regularly spilt I may, perhaps, help
the young lady.’
‘Do you know what that is?’ asked Mr. Frankston, pointing to a black
curved substance out of the water, and apparently belonging to some
submarine monster which was proceeding in a parallel direction, and at
no great distance.
‘Not a know do I know,’ replied the bushman.
‘It’s the back fin of a _shark_, and he’s no small one either. He’d
pick us up at his leisure, if anything happened to the boat, like a
turkey among grasshoppers.’
‘By George!’ said the man of the forest, ‘I wish I was on Ben Bolt now,
without saddle or bridle, and him bucking his best, this minute! There
is some get away, if anything broke, short of your neck. But here it
seems to be the Never-Never country, and no mistake.’
They had made what is nautically called ‘a long board,’ in tacking at
immense angles, so as to take fullest advantage of the wind, which
seemed to increase rapidly, until something like the foretaste of the
fury of a gale was upon them. The sky had darkened; night was not far
distant. The sea had risen, and the long-backed rollers made it
increasingly difficult for so small a craft to avoid an upset. Nothing
but the splendid steering of their skipper, the perfect handling of the
crew, combined with the weatherly qualities of the _Haidée_, gave them
the chance of riding it out.
‘Steady all, and look out for your heads while she jibes,’ sung out old
Paul. ‘I think we shall fetch smooth water with this tack; if so we’re
safe for dinner, with better appetites than usual.’
‘And if not?’ inquired Ernest, with an anxious gaze at Antonia, who sat
drenched with spray and pale, but with the most perfect composure
visible upon her unmoved features.
‘Did you ever hear tell of one Davy Jones?’ made answer Mr. Frankston,
whose furrowed face, torn with anxiety for the fate of his soul’s
darling, contradicted the lightness of his tone, ‘for if we are sent
back into the gale, we are very like to mess with him this evening.’
And now, as the tiny bark swung round to her altered course, and, lying
close up to the wind, flew down with hazardous swiftness towards the
entrance to the little bay, which to them was a haven of safety,
Ernest, true to his lifelong habit of observation, scanned the faces of
his companions with half-unconscious curiosity.
Calm and strong sat the old man, with the tiller in his sinewy hand;
his eye was steady, his hand was true, and none could have told by
reading his countenance that the life of one he held a thousandfold
dearer than his own hung on the balance of a frail boat and a stormy
sea.
The two sailors had the ordinary non-committal expression always
observable in trained seamen, unvarying apparently, whether a sail be
split, a leak be sprung, or a hopeless fire be discovered in the hold.
Mr. Windsor, unconsciously holding on tightly to the thwart upon which
he sat, as though looseness of seat might operate prejudicially, as in
the countless equine dangers which he had braved, was evidently of
opinion, with Panurge, that a cabbage planter was a man to be envied.
On the pale clear-cut features of the Australian maiden sat a wondrous
calm, not wholly unmingled with mental exaltation, as of a Greek
heroine devoted to death yet favoured of the gods. The wild night
breeze had blown back her hair, yet, as she leaned forward and gazed
fearlessly at the course, nothing could have improved the statuesque
ease and grace of her pose. One of the rare personages who, either from
instinctive adaptation or finished training, seem identified with all
sea life and adventure from the moment they touch the plank of boat or
vessel, she appeared born to rule and glory amid the perils of old
Ocean.
As she looked forward into the driving gale, a steady lambent light
shining out of her clear dark eyes, Ernest Neuchamp thought he could
trace more of the enjoyment that fearless natures extract from danger
than of even reasonable apprehension in the girl’s whole mien and
bearing.
‘Well, if we are to go down to the shades below,’ thought he, ‘no one
appears to have more than a very slight objection to the cruise; Jack
and myself, as being mere landsmen, alone excepted. Well, perhaps our
luck will pull us through this time.’
As if in response to his unspoken half-thought, half-prayer, Paul
Frankston broke the silence by saying with a different tone in his
voice from its last intonation, ‘By George! I believe poor little
_Haidée_ will do it yet. Yonder’s the point, and I think we shall just
be able to slip into the inner cove. Antonia darling, what are you
thinking about?’
‘I was thinking of my mother,’ said the girl dreamily, as with an
effort she changed her position, and reverted to an everyday expression
of face and manner. ‘I wonder if people know one another at once in the
spirit world. Papa! I think I must begin to put a check upon your
boat-sailing tastes, or you must get a Kanaka crew that can’t be
drowned. You are a little too venturous even for _me_.’
As the boat glided in towards the Morahmee pier, and one by one
thankfully exchanged the wet and slippery planks for the solid
stonework, the sky darkened yet again, and the storm in its might swept
over the angry waste of waters outside of the sheltered nook as if a
fresh blast had been unchained among the far south ice fieldss, and had
hasted to the gathering where wind and sea revel in their mirth, and
where many a tress of mermaiden hair mingles with the trailing ocean
sea-flowers.
Mr. Windsor spoke no word until they had nearly reached the garden
gate. Then he said respectfully, but firmly, ‘I think I’ve seen all I
mean to see of Sydney harbour, sir. I don’t care if I never go fishing
again, except off a river bank. If any one says there’s three heads and
not two, I shan’t say whether they’re right or wrong. The next time I’m
a little tired of being John Windsor I shall stumble against Ben Bolt’s
hind-legs; but no more salt-water pleasure parties. I ain’t on.
Good-night, sir.’
Miss Frankston did not appear at the dinner-table, but her father and
Ernest recompensed themselves for their exertions and anxieties by a
comparative liberal use of the wine-cup.
‘Stick to that port, my boy,’ said the old gentleman; ‘one needs a
generous wine after our little adventure―and a glass of “hot stopping”
won’t do any harm afterwards. It was rather a near thing; fact is, I am
_not_ quite cautious enough, and fancy it like old times, when, with a
Maori boat’s crew, or these Kanaka fellows, it was next to impossible
to be drowned. Drowned! If I’d gone down in my old whaling cruises
every time I’ve been in a stove boat, out of sight of the ship, too, I
should have been drowned a dozen times.’
‘Are accidents frequent in this port?’ said Ernest.
‘Well, there are not so many as you might expect, considering the
number of yachts and sailing boats; but still they occur from time to
time. You saw the way the southerly gale came on to-night. Well, with
an awkward crew such a boat as ours would have been bottom up now as
sure as we sit here. There was Colonel Bigges, who used to live at
Point Piper; he was always boating, not a bad hand, but of course, no
sailor. “Colonel,” I said, one day, “you will have a trip too many if
you don’t mind.”
‘“What makes you think so?” says he; “I’ll sail you for anything you
like. I’m going out next Saturday.”
‘Something made me say, “Then don’t take the young ladies out, to
oblige me.” He had two daughters, nice pretty girls they were, too.
Well, for a wonder, he minded what I said. What was the consequence?
His boat was upset a mile from shore; he had two men-servants in the
boat; they were drowned. The Colonel only reached land by the help of
his sons, who were splendid swimmers. If the girls had been of the
party nothing earthly could have saved them.’