GEORGE FIELDING found Farmer Dodd waiting to drive him to the town where
he was to meet Mr. Winchester. The farmer's wife would press a glass of
wine upon George. She was an old playmate of his, and the tear was in
her eye as she shook his hand and bade Heaven bless him, and send him
safe back to “The Grove.”
“A taking of his hand and him going across sea!! Can't ye do no better
nor that?” cried the stout farmer; “I'm not a-looking, dame.”
So then Mrs. Dodd put her hands on George's shoulders and kissed
him rustic-wise on both cheeks--and he felt a tear on his cheek, and
stammered “Good-by, Jane--you and I were always good neighbors, but now
we shan't be neighbors for a while. Ned, drive me away, please, and let
me shut my eyes and forget that ever I was born.”
The farmer made a signal of intelligence to his wife and drove him
hastily away.
They went along in silence for about two miles. Then the farmer suddenly
stopped. George looked up, the other looked down.
“Allen's Corner, George. You know 'The Grove' is in sight from here,
and after this we shan't see it again on account of this here wood, you
know.”
“Thank ye, Ned! Yes--one more look--the afternoon sun lies upon it. Oh,
how different it do seem to my eyes now, by what it used when I rode
by from market; but then I was going to it, now I'm going far, far from
it--never heed me, Ned--I shall be better in a moment. Heaven forgive
me for thinking so little of the village folk as I have done.” Then he
suddenly threw up his hands. “God bless the place and bless the folk,”
he cried very loud; “God bless them all, from the oldest man in it,
and that is grandfather, down to Isaac King's little girl that was born
yester-night! and may none of them ever come to this corner, and their
faces turned toward the sea.”
“Doant ye, George! doant ye! doant ye! doant ye!” cried Edward Dodd in
great agitation.
“Let the mare go on, Ned; she is fretting through her skin.”
“I'll fret her,” roared the farmer, lifting his whip exactly as if it
was a sword, and a cut to be made at a dragoon's helmet. “I'll cut her
liver out.”
“No, ye shan't,” said George. “Poor thing, she is thinking of her corn
at the Queen's Head in Newborough. She isn't going across the sea--let
her go, I've taken my last look and said my last word;” and he covered
up his face.
Farmer Dodd drove on in silence, except that every now and then he gave
an audible snivel, and whenever this occurred he always accommodated the
mare with a smart cut--reasonable!
At Newborough they found Mr. Winchester. He drove George to the rail,
and that night they slept on board the _Phoenix_ emigrant ship. Here
they found three hundred men and women in a ship where there was room
for two hundred and fifty, accommodation for eighty.
Next morning, “Farmer,” said Mr. Winchester gayly, “we have four hours
before we sail--some of these poor people will suffer great hardships
between this and Sydney; suppose you and I go and buy a lot of blankets,
brawn, needles, canvas, greatcoats, felt, American beef, solidified
milk, Macintoshes, high-lows and thimbles. That will rouse us up a
little.”
“Thank you, sir, kindly.”
Out they went into the Ratcliffe Highway, and chaffered with some of the
greatest rascals in trade. The difference between what they asked and
what they took made George stare. Their little cabin was crowded with
goods, only just room left for the aristocrat, the farmer and Carlo. And
now the hour came. Poor George was roused from his lethargy by the noise
and bustle; and oh, the creaking of cables sickened his heart. Then the
steamer came up and took them in tow, and these our countrymen and women
were pulled away from their native land too little and too full to hold
us all. It was a sad sight, saddest to those whose own flesh and blood
was on the shore and saw the steamer pull them away; bitterest to those
who had no friend to watch them go.
How they clung to England! they stretched out their hands to her, and
when they could hold to her no other way they waved their hats and their
handkerchiefs to their countrymen, who waved to them from shore--and so
they spun out a little longer the slender chain that visibly bound them
to her. And at this moment even the iron-hearted and the reckless were
soft and sad. Our hearts' roots lie in the soil we have grown on.
No wonder then George Fielding leaned over the ship-side benumbed with
sorrow, and counted each foot of water as it glided by, and thought “Now
I am so much farther from Susan.”
For a wonder he was not sea-sick, but his appetite was gone from a
nobler cause; he could hardly be persuaded to eat at all for many days.
The steamer cast off at Gravesend, and the captain made sail and beat
down the Channel. Off the Scilly Isles a northeasterly breeze, and the
_Phoenix_ crowded all her canvas; when topsails, royals, skyscrapers and
all were drawing the men rigged out booms alow and aloft, and by means
of them set studding sails out several yards clear of the hull on either
side; so on she plowed, her canvas spread out like an enormous fan or
a huge albatross all wings. A goodly, gallant show; but under all this
vast and swelling plumage an exile's heart.
Of all that smarted, ached and throbbed beneath that swelling plumage
few suffered more than poor George. It was his first great sorrow; and
all so new and strange.
The ship touched at Madeira, and then flew southward with the favoring
gale. Many leagues she sailed, and still George hung over the bulwarks
and sadly watched the waves. This simple-minded, honest fellow was not
a girl. If they had offered to put the ship about and take him back he
would not have consented, but yet to go on almost broke his heart. He
was steel and butter. His friend, the honorable Frank Winchester, was or
seemed all steel. He was one of those sanguine spirits that don't admit
into their minds the notion of ultimate failure. He was supported, too,
by a natural and indomitable gayety. Whatever most men grumble or whine
at he took as practical jokes played by Fortune partly to try his good
humor, but more to amuse him.
The poorer passengers suffered much discomfort, and the blankets, etc.,
stored in Winchester's cabin often warmed these two honest hearts,
as with pitying hands they wrapped them round some shivering
fellow-creature.
Off Cape Verd a heavy gale came on. It lasted thirty-six hours, and the
distress and sufferings of the over-crowded passengers were terrible. An
unpaternal government had allowed a ship to undertake a voyage of twelve
thousand miles, with a short crew, short provisions, and just twice as
many passengers as could be protected from the weather.
Driven from the deck by the piercing wind and the deluges of water that
came on board, and crowded into the narrowest compass, many of these
unfortunates almost died of sickness and polluted air; and when in
despair they rushed back upon deck, horrors and suffering met them in
another shape; in vain they huddled together for a little warmth and
tried to shield themselves with blankets stretched to windward. The
bitter blast cut like a razor through their threadbare defenses, and the
water rushed in torrents along the deck and crept cold as ice up their
bodies as they sat huddled, or lay sick and despairing on the hard and
tossing wood; and whenever a heavier sea than usual struck the ship a
despairing scream burst from the women, and the good ship groaned and
shivered and seemed to share their fears, and the blast yelled into
their souls, “I am mighty as fate--as fate. And pitiless! pitiless!
pitiless! pitiless! pitiless!”
Oh! then, how they longed for a mud cabin, or a hole picked with a
pickax in some ancient city wall, or a cow-house, or a cart-shed in
their native land.
But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. This storm raised George
Fielding's better part of man. Integer vitae scelerisque purus was not
very much afraid to die. Once when the _Phoenix_ gave a weather roll
that wetted the foresail to the yard-arm, he said, “My poor Susan!” with
a pitying accent, not a quavering one. But most of the time he was busy
crawling on all-fours from one sufferer to another with a drop of brandy
in a phial. The wind emptied a glass of the very moisture let alone
the liquid in a moment. So George would put his bottle to some poor
creature's lips, and if it was a man he would tell him in his simple way
Who was stronger than the wind or the sea, and that the ship could not
go down without His will. To the women he whispered that he had just had
a word with the captain, and he said it was only a gale not a tempest,
as the passengers fancied, and there was no danger, none whatever.
The gale blew itself out, and then for an hour or two the ship rolled
frightfully; but at last the angry sea went down, the decks were mopped,
the _Phoenix_ shook her wet feathers and spread her wings again and
glided on her way.
George felt a little better; the storm shook him and roused him and did
him good. And it was a coincidence in the history of these two lovers
that just as Susan under Mr. Eden's advice was applying the healing
ointment of charitable employment to her wound, George, too, was finding
a little comfort and life from the little bit of good he and his friend
did to the poor population in his wooden hamlet.
After a voyage of four months one evening the captain shortened sail,
though the breeze was fair and the night clear. Upon being asked the
reason of this strange order he said knowingly, “If you get up with the
sun perhaps you will see the reason.”
Curiosity being excited, one or two did rise before the sun. Just as
he emerged from the sea a young seaman called Patterson, who was in the
foretop, hailed the deck.
“What is it?” roared the mate.
“Land on the weather bow,” sung out the seaman in reply.
Land! In one moment the word ran like electric fire through all the
veins of the _Phoenix_; the upper deck was crowded in a minute, but all
were disappointed. No one saw land but Mr. Patterson, whose elevation
and keen sight gave him an advantage. But a heavenly smell as of a
region of cowslips came and perfumed the air and rejoiced all the
hearts; at six o'clock a something like a narrow cloud broke the watery
horizon on the weather bow. All sail was made and at noon the coast
of Australia glittered like a diamond under their lee. Then the three
hundred prisoners fell into a wild excitement--some became irritable,
others absurdly affectionate to people they did not care a button for.
The captain himself was not free from the intoxication; he walked the
deck in jerks instead of his usual roll, and clapped on sail as if he
would fly on shore.
At half-past one they glided out of the open sea into the Port Jackson
River. They were now in a harbor fifteen miles long, land-locked on both
sides, and not a shoal or a rock in it. This wonderful haven, in which
all the navies that float or ever will float might maneuver all day and
ride at anchor all night without jostling, was the sea avenue by which
they approached a land of wonders.
It was the second of December. The sky was purple and the sun blazed
in its center. The land glittered like a thousand emeralds beneath his
glowing smile, and the waves seemed to drink his glory and melt it into
their tints, so rich were the flakes of burning gold that shone in the
heart of their transparent, lovely blue.
“Oh! what a heavenly land! and after four months' prison at sea.”
Our humble hero's heart beat high with hope. Surely in so glorious a
place as this he could make a thousand pounds, and then dart back with
it to Susan. Long before the ship came to an anchor George got a sheet
of paper and by a natural impulse wrote to Susan a letter, telling her
all the misery the _Phoenix_ and her passengers had come through between
London Bridge and Sydney Cove, and as soon as he had written it he tore
it up and threw it into the water. “It would have vexed her to hear what
I have gone through. Time enough to tell her that when I am home again
sitting by the fire with her hand in mine.”
So then he tried again and wrote a cheerful letter, and concealed all
his troubles except his sorrow at being obliged to go so far from her
even for a time. “But it is only for a time, Susan dear. And, Susan
dear, I've got a good friend here, and one that can feel for us; for he
is here on the same errand as I am. I am to bide with him six months and
help him the best I can, and so I shall learn how matters are managed
here; and after that I am to set up on my own account; and, Susan dear,
I do think by all I can see there is money to be made here. Heaven knows
my heart was never much set on gain, but it is now because it is the
road to you. Please tell Will Carlo has been a great comfort to me
and is a general favorite. He pointed a rat on board ship--but it was
excusable, and him cooped up so long and had almost forgotten the smell
of a bird, I daresay; and if anybody comes to make believe to threaten
me he is ready to pull them down in a minute. So tell Will this, and
that I do think his master is as much my friend at home as the dog is
out here.
“Susan dear, I do beg of you as a great favor to keep up your heart,
and not give way to grief or desponding feelings. I don't; leastways
I won't. Poor Mr. Winchester is here on the same errand as I am. But I
often think his heart is stouter than mine, which is much to his credit
and little to mine. Susan dear, I have come to the country that is
farther from Grassmere than any other in the globe--that seems hard; and
my very face is turned the opposite way to yours as I walk, but nothing
can ever turn my heart away from my Susan. I desire my respects to Mr.
Merton and that you would tell him I will make the one thousand pounds,
please God. But I hope you will pray for me, Susan, that I may have
that success; you are so good that I do think the Almighty will hear
you sooner than me or any one. So no more at present, dear Susan, but
remain, with sincere respect, your loving servant and faithful lover
till death, GEORGE FIELDING.”
They landed. Mr. Winchester purchased the right of feeding cattle over
a large tract a hundred miles distant from Sydney, and after a few days
spent in that capital started with their wagons into the interior. There
for about five months George was Mr. Winchester's factotum, and though
he had himself much to learn, the country and its habits being new to
him, still he saved his friend from fundamental errors, and, from five
in the morning till eight at night, put zeal, honesty and the muscular
strength of two ordinary men at his friend's service.
At the expiration of this period Mr. Winchester said to him one evening,
“George, I can do my work alone now, and the time is come to show my
sense of your services and friendship. I have bought a run for you about
eight miles from here, and now you are to choose five hundred sheep and
thirty beasts; the black pony you ride goes with them.”
“Oh no, sir! it is enough to rob you of them at all without me going and
taking the pick of them.”
“Well! will you consent to pen the flocks and then lift one hurdle and
take them as they come out, so many from each lot?”
“That I consent to, sir, and remain your debtor for life.”
“I can't see it; I set _my life_ a great deal higher than sheepskin.”
Mr. Winchester did not stop there, he forced a hundred pounds upon
George. “If you start in any business with an empty pocket you are a
gone coon.”
So these two friends parted with mutual esteem, and George set to work
by prudence and vigor to make the thousand pounds.
One thousand pounds! This one is to have the woman he loves for a
thousand pounds. That sounds cheap. Heaven upon earth for a thousand
pounds. What is a thousand pounds? Nothing. There are slippery men that
gain this in a week by time bargains, trading on capital of round 0's;
others who net as much in an evening, and as honorably, by cards. There
are merchants who net twenty times this sum by a single operation.
“An operation?” inquires Belgravia.
This is an operation: You send forth a man not given to drink and
consequently chatter to Amsterdam, another not given to drink and
chatter to New Orleans, another n. g. t. d. and c. to Bordeaux, Cadiz,
Canton, Liverpool, Japan, and where not, all with secret instructions.
Then at an appointed day all the men n. g. t. d. and c. begin gradually,
secretly, cannily, to buy up in all those places all the lac-dye or
something of the kind that you and I thought there was about thirty
pounds of in creation. This done mercator raises the price of lac-dye or
what not throughout Europe. If he is greedy and raises it a halfpenny
a pound, perhaps commerce revolts and invokes nature against so vast an
oppression, and nature comes and crushes our speculator. But if he be
wise and puts on what mankind can bear, say three mites per pound, then
he sells tons and tons at this fractional profit on each pound, and
makes fourteen thousand pounds by lac-dye or the like of which you and I
thought creation held thirty or at most thirty-two pounds.
These men are the warriors of commerce; but its smaller captains,
watching the fluctuations of this or that market, can often turn a
thousand pounds ere we could say J. R. Far more than a thousand pounds
have been made in a year by selling pastry off a table in the Boulevards
of Paris.
In matters practical a single idea is worth thousands.
This nation being always in a hurry paid four thousand pounds to a
man to show them how to separate letter-stamps in a hurry. “Punch the
divisions full of little holes,” said he, and he held out his hand for
the four thousand pounds; and now test his invention, tear one head from
another in a hurry, and you will see that money sometimes goes cheaper
than invention.
A single idea is sometimes worth a thousand pounds in a book, though
books are by far the least lucrative channels ideas run in; Mr.
Bradshaw's duodecimo, to wit--profit seven thousand pounds per annum.
A thousand pounds! How many men have toiled for money all their lives,
have met with success, yet never reached a thousand pounds.
Eight thousand servants, fed and half clothed at their master's expense,
have put by for forty years, and yet not even by aid of interest and
compound interest and perquisites and commissions squeezed out of little
tradesmen and other time-honored embezzlements, have reached the rubicon
of four figures. Five thousand little shopkeepers, active, intelligent
and greedy, have bought wholesale and sold retail, yet never mounted so
high as this above rent, housekeeping, bad debts and casualties. Many
a writer of genius has charmed his nation and adorned her language, yet
never held a thousand pounds in his hand even for a day. Many a great
painter has written the world-wide language of form and color, and
attained to European fame, but not to a thousand pounds sterling
English.
Among all these aspirants and a million more George Fielding now made
one, urged and possessed by as keen an incentive as ever spurred a man.
George's materials were five hundred sheep, twenty cows, ten bullocks,
two large sheep-dogs and Carlo. It was a keen clear, frosty day in July
when he drove his herd to his own pasture. His heart beat high that
morning. He left Abner, his shepherd, a white native of the colony, to
drive the slow cattle. He strode out in advance, and scarce felt the
ground beneath his feet. The thermometer was at 28 degrees, yet his
coat was only tied round his neck by the sleeves as he swept along all
health, fire, manhood, love and hope. He marched this day like dear
Smollett's lines, whose thoughts, though he had never heard them, fired
his heart.
“Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye;
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.”
He was on the ground long before Abner, and set to work building a
roofless hut on the west side of some thick bushes, and hard by the
only water near at hand. And here he fixed his headquarters, stretched a
blanket across the hut for a roof, and slept his own master.