My eldest brother, visiting Sydney from the station, thought we had
better go to school for a year. Fortunately one was found where there
were only eight boarders. The lady principal was the daughter of an
English clergyman, and her brother, also a clergyman, had charge of the
parish in which she resided, about forty miles from Sydney. She was a
highly educated woman and a true Christian. We were treated as her own
daughters, guarded from everything that could possibly sully the pages
of our dawning womanhood. I have often thought what a wise thing it was
that my brother suggested our going there. No poetry or novel reading
now; more solid food for the mind helped to leaven what might have
proved dangerous. My chief amusements were music and singing, and even
in “The Golden South” I remember getting up in frosty weather to
practise by candlelight with mittened hands and chilblained fingers.
These schooldays were very happy. The large brick house with verandahs
and balconies all round: the garden only divided from the river-bank by
a thick hedge of aloes, and on the other side the high wall of the
recreation ground of the Liverpool Asylum: this wall was the only one I
ever saw fruit trees growing against as in England. Liverpool was
certainly just the place then for a school, as we might walk from one
end of the township to the other without seeing a single individual; but
unfortunately for Madame’s peace of mind there were two residents who
had large families of boys; however, as they were always absent from
home during the week, and we never went out on Sundays except to church,
she felt relieved. Our dear Madame never thought that her girls
occasionally found boyish epistles written on aloe leaves. On Saturdays
we were never allowed out of the grounds, so on these mornings attended
to our wardrobes, and in the afternoon had a delightful time in an old
weatherboard cottage in the garden roasting cashew nuts, of which
delicacy Madame had a large quantity brought from the West Indies by a
friend. We used to make presents of these, when properly prepared, to
our friends.
One Sunday evening a great event for us happened. As usual we went to
church, but being a cold dark night, no one was religiously inclined, so
the Rev. Mr. Duffus, I suppose, thought “his sister and her schoolgirls
were not sufficient congregation,” and adjourned to his house opposite.
We with Madame followed, and I for one thought it a very good idea, as
we with his children spent the evening before a splendid log-fire in
their nursery. This and going there on Her Majesty’s birthday were the
only occasions I remember anything like amusement away from the school.
Being an exceedingly loyal people, the birthday was kept up by a huge
bonfire in the paddock after a girls’ picnic in the Bush, on which
occasion I saw a snake for the first time in Australia. Bessie D---- and
I having gone at my suggestion to wander about in couples to see “who
could find the most curious thing,” came upon an enormous carpet snake,
decidedly the most curious find. We ran away screaming; but Madame soon
came to the rescue and killed the dreadful creature. Only two of that
band of girls are now left; one in her native land, and the other
writing this near a small village in Hampshire, with a bitter
north-easterly wind blowing.
That year at L---- was truly a resting-place for me before the real
battle of life began, and it was well spent, for it drew together the
threads, a little tangled, of a rather exceptional education. The dear
Madame, who joined warp and woof so gently yet firmly, I can never cease
to love. She has gone where her work will follow her; loved by many
here, and in “the world beyond the stars” may have met some of her
children again who have lived to call her blessed. This is a digression;
but having finished my education and lived the greater portion of my
life in the colony so many people despise and throw stones at, I feel
bound to let my readers know that such things were more than forty years
ago. Yet I cannot help adding that Sydney in the forties was in many
respects not a comfortable place to live in, especially to those who
had only been accustomed to all the luxuries of London life. Tradesmen
were not over civil, domestics were scarce, and what there were, very
incompetent. The older colonists were in this respect far better off. I
knew a family who had a splendid estate about sixty miles from Sydney.
The owner was a retired major who had at least forty servants, many
living in huts near the house, among them a carpenter, blacksmith, and
shoemaker, and also a large store on the property. One of the men, an
Italian, taught his sons and daughters music, the flute, violin, cornet,
and piano; he also formed a band of musicians from the men on the
“Height.” There was also a theatre and billiard-room; in fact, this
place fifty years ago was like a large manor-house with every
arrangement for comfort and amusement. The owner once had the whole of
one side of George Street south offered to him for a few hundred pounds,
which he refused, as he wanted to add to the “Height.”
His eldest son and two daughters were amongst the dearest friends of my
youth, the two eldest most accomplished musicians on piano and flute; I
have often spent hours listening to them playing together. As was the
case with many others of the early colonists, not a rood of land ever
came into the possession of their descendants. In this case part of the
estate was sold for a trifle to a friend of mine, who was having it put
into partial repair when, by a strange fatality, it was burned down on
the same night that the major’s eldest son died many miles distant. Some
years after the youngest son bought back a piece of the old estate,
intending to build a cottage residence on it: the plans were completed
and all arrangements made when he died from a neglected cold. They are
all gone now. The sons never married, so the name has died out, except
that the estate and one street in Sydney still bear it.
* * * * *
When my school life ended, I returned to my home, which was now a pretty
cottage, surrounded by a garden full of lovely flowers and shrubs,
enclosed by a high white paling fence. The house had a verandah in front
covered with white jasmine, roses, and honeysuckle. The entrance led at
once into the drawing-room, from thence into another we called the
music-room, and farther on into a back hall, from which you entered the
dining and bed rooms. At the back a flight of stone steps led to
kitchen, servants’ room, and laundry; at the other side a well-room and
larder; at the end of the front verandah was a room we used as a study,
and at the side a door leading to another flight of steps to a stone
passage between our house and the next. It was the prettiest and coolest
house I ever lived in in Sydney. While there my mother seemed to rally
from a severe illness she had had and became her bright self again, with
all her children around her once more; and having two very good
servants, affairs were a little more cheery. My father nearly losing his
life brought back again all her dislike to the colony. He had gone over
to the north shore by the ferry collecting for his Australian cabinet
of insects, when about four miles inland, going through the scrub, he
felt something sting his leg; on looking down he saw one of the most
deadly snakes gliding away. His first thought was, “If I have not a
knife I am a dead man.” He had one fortunately, so sitting down on a
fallen tree he cut the piece of flesh out round the bitten part, then
tore his handkerchief in half, and tied the pieces tightly above and
below the wound. It was an intensely hot January day, so that his
four-mile walk through the scrub and sand was dreadful. When he reached
the ferry the boat was on the other side; but a boatman near saw that
something was the matter, and running towards him, asked, “What is
wrong, sir?” My father was just able to answer, “Met with an accident;
take me to the nearest doctor in Lower George Street,” when he fainted
from loss of blood and over-exertion. The doctor knew my father, and
when he had given him some brandy and restored him to his senses, asked
him to relate what had happened. When we returned home from church the
house was in commotion. My father was being walked up and down between
two men, who were not to allow him to sleep on any account. He often
said afterwards he remembered little about it, as he believed the brandy
the doctor had given him made him intoxicated, he being a very temperate
man, and never taking spirits at any time. The snake, as he thought, was
one of the most deadly kind, and the doctor said the long walk after the
bite had caused some small portion of the virus to mix with the blood.
It was one of the few cases of recovery from that reptile’s poison ever
heard of, and for some weeks the wound was most painful. This made me
always most nervous in regard to snakes, and often spoiled my enjoyment
of country walks. On two occasions I was only just saved from treading
on them by the merest chance. Once sitting on the verandah of a friend’s
house at Double Bay on a Sunday morning, I heard the words, “Don’t move;
there is a snake round the leg of the chair you are on.” I obeyed, but
the creature, disturbed by the voice, moved off the verandah and
disappeared. That same day we were sitting at dinner when the report of
the gun was heard, which at that time used to be fired by the mail
steamers on arrival in Sydney Harbour; and my friend went out to see the
steamer pass, when there was monsieur snake on the door-mat basking in
the sun. This time nothing was done to disturb him till means were
procured for his destruction, and he was killed. On the other occasion I
was walking across Balmain with a friend. When passing through a rocky
part we came to some water, James said, “Let me go first.” Just as he
did so, I saw a large “whip snake” lying on the path. In an instant his
foot was on it. Being a heavy man he crushed the head: if it had been my
lighter weight it would only have disturbed the creature. I nearly
fainted; but my friend began to scold and then laugh at my fears.