"If she does not wait for my return I must find someone else to share my
fortune, if I make one."
The train pulled up with a jerk that threw Captain Seagrave forward.
"Bad steering," he said. "I wish I had the engine driver in my stoke
hole, he'd learn better manners down there."
"Tickets, please," said the porter.
"Tell the driver of this train he----"
The porter banged the door to, and left the skipper fuming.
Arriving at Brighton they walked to Jack Redland's lodgings, and after
tea sat on the balcony.
"You are well fixed up here," said Seagrave, "nice and comfortable I
call it. Rum old place this, I often wonder what sort of a time those
old dandies had in the Pavilion a century or more ago."
"Judging from what I have read, they must have been gay and festive,"
replied Jack. "They drank hard, and made love desperately then; we go
about such things in a more decorous manner now."
"That's true, but is it a change for the better? Is secret debauchery an
improvement on open profligacy?"
He was rather surprised to hear his companion talk in this strain, and
said--
"You do not think the morals of the present generation are any better
than they were in those days?"
"Not a bit, you've only to look at the papers to find that out. There is
some fairly sultry reading in the Divorce Court cases."
"Granted," replied Jack, "but still I think on the whole we have become
better mannered, and more circumspect, since the time of the Georges."
"Maybe, but with all the learning to be had at other people's expense, I
don't think we have much to boast about. In my young days we had to
learn to work almost before we learned to spell."
"It does not seem to have done you much harm."
"None at all, but I'd have been a tarnation sight more presentable if
somebody had taken me in hand and licked me into shape."
"What sort of a place is Fremantle?" asked Jack, changing the subject.
"It's not much like Brighton," replied Captain Seagrave, laughing.
"You'll find a vast difference, but there's worse places than Fremantle
on the face of the globe. It's an old convict settlement, at the mouth
of the Swan river, about a dozen miles from Perth. It's not one of the
best of harbours, but I have never met with any mishap there. It has
been improved a lot of late years. It will seem a very dull place to
you, I am afraid. May I ask what you are going to do when you arrive
there. It's not a good place to be stranded in."
"My friend, Harry Marton, is going out at the request of Barry
Tuxford----" commenced Jack.
"Barry! well, I'm blest. Barry Tuxford, you'll be all right with him.
There's no cleverer man than Barry in Western Australia, he can make
money out of anything he touches. What do you think his latest move is?"
"Something out of the common," ventured Jack.
"Rather! He's revived the pearl fishing again, and what's more, he's had
his usual luck.
"That is what he wants us for; I say us because he told Harry to take a
friend out with him. We are going pearl fishing."
Captain Seagrave laughed.
"Barry will get the pearls and you will do the hard graft, but he will
treat you fairly, he's a square man is Barry Tuxford. I reckon you'll go
up to Shark's Bay and round that quarter, it is an outlandish place. I
fancy life on a station would suit you best; anyway, I'd give it a
chance if the pearling does not agree with you. They'll be glad to have
a 'jackaroo' like you, who can ride, on any sheep station."
"What is a jackaroo?" said Jack.
"A new chum who wants to learn sheep farming; some of them pay a
premium, but there is no occasion for that. You can work for nothing and
learn a lot in a very short time. It's a rum life, but I have met many
men who would not leave it for anything else. I suppose the great open
country is to them like the sea to me, they feel lost without it."
"I shall make my way to Sydney if I cannot do anything in Western
Australia. Caleb Kenley, who trains for Sir Lester Dyke, has a brother
there, who is doing very well in the same line, and he says he will be
very glad to see me."
"I'm sure he will, you are one of the right sort, Mr. Redland, and if
you'll take an old salt's tip you'll quit pearl shelling and stick to
horses."