DICK GOES TO SEA.
All was bustle and hurry aboard the steamer. Cargo was still being
loaded; the creak and rattle of the great crane, as it swung back and
forth, the crash of cases, dumped into the yawning mouth of the hold,
mingled with the confusion of arriving passengers and the shouts of
sailors and dock hands. On the decks people were hurrying about,
seeking stewards and cabins, and the doorways were blocked with little
groups saying good-bye. Overhead a harsh whistle shrilled out--so
suddenly that everyone jumped, and horses on the wharf danced
nervously. Someone in uniform shouted:
"Everyone for the shore!"
Good-byes filled the air. Women hurried towards the gangway, as if
fearful of being carried off to the "wild and woolly West," followed
more slowly by those more experienced. Passengers hastened up from the
wharf; cab drivers, trotting in leisurely, whipped up their horses in
response to nervous appeals from their anxious fares. The big crane
went on, creaking and swinging, dumping in its cases as though there
were no such item on the ship's programme as starting.
Dick watched the late arrivals curiously. Men formed the greater
number; there were smart and brisk commercial travellers, and others,
less prosperous, evidently off to seek their fortune in that West
which, to much of the rest of Australia, is still an unknown land.
Tearful wives and children hung about the necks of some of these,
saying the last hard good-byes; but in some cases the wives and
children were coming too, and they trooped on board, shabby little
flocks, with the tired mothers trying to keep the stragglers together.
The whistle sounded again, and there was a second summons, a peremptory
one this time, for strangers to leave the ship. They hurried down the
gangway, and then the great ladder was hauled up the ship's side, the
deck-railing swung in across the gap, and in a few moments the
_Moondarra_ began to back slowly from the wharf. The people below grew
smaller, their upturned faces white dots in the evening gloom. From
everywhere came shouts of "Good-bye." A young bride, off to the West
with a huge, bronzed bushman, leaned over the side, holding the ends of
long streamers of ribbon, of which the other ends were held by her
friends on shore. Her face was happy and yet tearful; she looked
wistfully towards Adelaide. The ribbons lengthened out, gradually
tightened as the ship drew further away, and finally, released by the
people on the wharf, sprang in the air. The girl gathered them up to
her quickly, a gay, fluttering bundle, and Dick heard her give a little
sob.
Just as the ship gathered way, they saw a motor suddenly turn in to the
wharf from the street, hooting as it came. Mrs. Lester peered at it
through the gloom.
"Isn't that Billy's car?" she said.
"My word, yes!" Dick cried. "He's standing up and trying to see us. I
wonder what he wants."
"Oh--he has remembered something he didn't tell us; and of course, it's
just like Billy to come racing back," Mrs. Lester said, laughing. "At
all events, he is too late." She waved her handkerchief towards the
car, though she knew that it would be impossible to distinguish anyone
in the long row of passengers crowding to look over the ship's rail.
"There--he has given it up as a bad job."
They saw Billy sit down again, after waving his hat in a kind of
general salutation towards the ship. Then the car turned slowly, and
slipped away. The dusk swallowed it up.
Somewhere near them a bugle blared, so suddenly, that everyone jumped.
The bugler, a very fat steward, finished a long trill carefully, and
then moved off to repeat the performance elsewhere. Someone hailed him.
"What's that for, steward?"
"Dressing bugle, sir," responded the fat player, stolidly. "Dinner in
half an hour, sir."
There was a general move from the deck. Dick and his mother found
themselves in a crowd going down the first staircase. Dick was too
much of a landsman yet to call it a companion. At the foot they
encountered another steward, who directed them to their cabins, along
an alley-way; Dick's was opposite his mother's. It was a two-berth
cabin, and he found that he was not the only occupant---indeed, so big
was his fellow passenger that it seemed unlikely that there would be
any room for Dick at all. He paused uncertainly, just inside the
doorway.
An enormous man, who was unstrapping a leather suit-case, swung round
suddenly.
"Hullo, youngster," he said. "Do you belong in here?"
"Well--the steward said so," Dick answered with some uncertainty.
"Then you probably do," said the big man. "What's your number, sonny?
Thirty-seven? Yes, that's your bunk. Got anyone with you?"
"My mother," Dick nodded. "She's in the opposite cabin."
"I see. And I've a wife and small son and daughter somewhere about.
Well, there's not a whole heap of room in these cabins, so it's luck
for me that I haven't struck a mate of my own size. But I expect you
don't look at it in that way."
Dick grinned. He rather liked this big, friendly person, but was much
too shy to talk. Indeed, it was rather dreadful to think of sharing a
cabin with him--with any stranger, for that matter.
"We won't worry each other very much," said his companion, as if
guessing his thoughts. "You'll be asleep long before I come to bed,
and I'm not as early as I might be in the mornings." He was unpacking
swiftly, distributing his belongings in shelves and on hooks. "I'll
leave space for you--those drawers are handy for your height, so I'll
take the upper ones. I see you've got the berth with the
porthole--lucky kid."
"I'll change, if you like," Dick said. It seemed the only thing to
say, but he didn't feel a cheerful giver. The little round window just
over his bed looked very inviting.
The big man laughed.
"Oh, not much!" he said. "Thanks, all the same, sonny, but I wouldn't
take it from you. Now, I'm pretty straight, so I'll clear out, for
it's quite evident that we can't move about together. So long." Dick
squeezed himself against his bunk to leave room for the great form as
he moved to the door.
His mother was a little inclined to be sympathetic on the subject a
little later.
"Oh, he might be worse," Dick said. "He's really quite a good sort.
And we shan't see so much of each other in the cabin, 'cause I'm going
to get up awfully early. You see, I don't want to waste a single
minute of my time on board ship."
"Well, you could nearly always take refuge in here if you were very
crowded," Mrs. Lester said.
"Thanks very much, mummie." Dick glanced round her cabin; it was the
same size as his own, but looked, somehow, immeasurably larger. The
second bunk was not made up, and looked inviting as a sofa. Already
his mother had unpacked, and her dainty belongings made the tiny place
homelike. "It is jolly, isn't it?" the small boy said.
"Yes, it's quite comfy. We'll use it together as a sitting-room,
Dickie. There's the bugle for dinner--come along."
There were many people in the long alley-way, hurrying towards the
dining saloon. Smooth water was certain for the first few hours of the
journey while they steamed down the Gulf. What sort of weather might
await them when they turned into the Bight--that place of many
storms--no one could say. Therefore, there was a general determination
to have at least one meal in comfort. People trooped up from their
cabins and down from the deck, crowding into the big saloon. The
stewards were busy directing all to their places, and delicately
shepherding new-comers from seats already reserved.
Mrs. Lester and Dick found themselves at a table presided over by the
ship's doctor, who promptly made himself known to all the passengers,
found out their names and saw to it that all under his wing felt at
home. He was a plump, cheery man, full of anecdotes and chatter. Dick
felt that it would be jolly to sit at his table. Opposite the Lesters
were four vacant places. Already at the table were a thin and angular
lady, whose name they found out was Miss Simpson; a very pretty girl of
eighteen, with her mother, a Mrs. Merritt, and a tall, silent man, Mr.
Dunstan, who looked as though he hailed from the bush, and made but the
briefest of responses to the doctor's jokes.
Close at hand was the captain's table, where, as the doctor remarked,
"Emperors and pontiffs" might be found. There were no emperors aboard
this time; the nearest approach to a pontiff was an English bishop,
who, with his wife, was touring Australia. He was a pink and pleasant
person, who rather gave the impression that he was curate to his
wife--a very tall woman, stout, dignified and extremely English. Dick
rejoiced inwardly that he did not sit near this dignitary. He went as
far as to feel sympathy for the captain himself, who made heavy weather
in his efforts to entertain her, and used to look slightly exhausted
towards the close of a meal. A famous singer--a tall, handsome
woman--was also at his table; and a noted actor, whom the bishop's wife
snubbed whenever possible. There was a chief justice from an eastern
state, he had a keen, clever face, at which Dick liked to look when he
spoke. The other people included a ship's captain going to take
command of a vessel at Fremantle; a member of Parliament and his wife,
a Riverina squatter, a German wool buyer and one or two others less
distinguished. Dick eyed them with awe, and was glad that he sat at
another table.
Just as the soup appeared, a quiet-looking young man slipped into one
of the vacant seats at the doctor's left; and presently a party of
three arrived to complete the table--Dick's enormous cabin mate, with
his wife and little girl. They sat down opposite, and immediately the
little girl made a face at Dick.
Now, Dick did not know much of the ways of girls, little or big. He
was thirteen, and at thirteen girls are the last things a boy worries
about. Therefore, this pleasantry on the part of the new-comer merely
puzzled him slightly. He wrinkled his nose a little and went on with
his soup.
The doctor was greeting them boisterously.
"Good evening, Mrs. Warner. Had a good run round Adelaide?"
"Oh, delightful," said the lady vaguely. Her husband laughed.
"Much she knows of Adelaide," he said. "She's been to a tea-party at
the club, and Merle and I have been running round like good tourists.
Haven't we, Merle?"
The little girl muttered something that sounded like "Horrid place!"
and again Mr. Warner laughed.
"Merle is in the stage of disliking everything outside her own boundary
fence," he said, attacking his dinner. "I've shown her all the
beauties of Eastern Australia, and she still says there's no place like
the sandy west, so we'll go back for another ten years or so before
coming this side again." His eye fell on Dick, and he nodded in a
friendly way. "Why, there's my cabin mate," he said. "I say, doctor,
don't you think it's a trifle hard on a boy of that size to find he has
drawn me in the lucky bag?"
"Distinctly," agreed the doctor, "but great luck for you." He made the
Warners and Lesters known to each other, and the elders chatted through
dinner. Merle, after another grimace at Dick, did not look his way
again, for which he was mildly thankful. He decided that she was a
cheeky kid, and thought no more about her--save that whenever he
chanced to look across he saw the square little face, surrounded by a
shock of dark hair and crowned with an enormous butterfly bow of black
ribbon.
The Warners, it seemed, were station owners north of Coolgardie, and
they were returning from a trip east.
"Our first for over twelve years," Mrs. Warner said. "We had a run
over just after we were married."
"And we've never had any time since," ejaculated Mr. Warner.
"No, what with babies and hard work," Mrs. Warner's face saddened.
Later, Mrs. Lester learned that two of the babies had failed to pull
through a very bad summer. They had begun with a very little place,
but gradually luck had come their way, and now they owned a big run.
"Thanks to our being willing to go out-back," said Mr. Warner. "People
nowadays forget what the first settlers did--our grandparents, who went
cheerfully out into the wilds and thought themselves lucky if they got
a mail and stores twice a year. There's any amount of room yet for men
and women with pluck enough to go into the back-country. But most of
them nowadays want a place two minutes from a township, with a post
office and a picture theatre round the corner. It makes me tired."
"Are you far out?" Mrs. Lester asked.
"Oh, not so far. Now that we have a car we get a mail once a
fortnight, and that has made us feel very civilised. We used to have
trouble with the blacks, but they're tame enough now."
"It was lonely enough at times," Mrs. Warner said. "One used to long
to see another white woman. But now that the children are bigger
things are better."
"Your little girl is old enough to be a companion to you now," Mrs.
Lester said, smiling at Merle, who merely scowled.
"More of a companion to me, I'm afraid," said Mr. Warner, laughing.
"Merle isn't a domesticated person; she thinks horses and dogs are the
only real things that matter."
"So they are," said Merle, suddenly, in a kind of small explosion.
Everyone laughed and she flushed to the roots of her black hair.
"Oh, Merle will become domesticated soon enough--she isn't twelve yet,"
her mother said, comfortably. "She is to have a governess when we get
back."
"I pity the poor governess who is to teach Merle all the useful
domestic arts," said Mr. Warner. "She will have an uphill game."
The angular lady, Miss Simpson, spoke suddenly.
"Do you not think," she asked, "that the tuition of the useful arts
should begin at a very much earlier age?" Her voice, like herself, was
angular; she glared at Merle, who returned the glare with interest.
"Much more was expected of little girls when I was young."
Mr. Warner gave one of his great laughs.
"Oh, much more, I'm sure," he said. "But surroundings count for
something; perhaps you weren't brought up on a lonely run, where your
only playmates were horses and dogs."
"Certainly not," said Miss Simpson. "I was brought up in London. And
in my day young ladies learned decorum."
"What's decorum?" asked Merle bluntly.
"Something you haven't got, my little savage," said her father.
"Well, what is it, anyhow?"
"Decorum is refined and ladylike behaviour," said Miss Simpson severely.
"Must be beastly," said Merle and went on with her dinner.
"That's enough, Merle," said her father, looking annoyed. He turned
back to the thin lady.
"Life in London has not many of the problems that beset small
Australians," he said. "Merle found a cow bogged in a swamp once. I
was away, so she had to gallop in to the homestead, collect a few
rubbishy blacks, the only men about, and get them on to the job of
rescue. I believe she had to wade in herself and hold up the poor
brute's head while they tugged her out. Of course, it was only a very
ordinary thing for a bush-bred child; no particular credit to Merle.
But it wouldn't have fitted in with your ideal of decorum, would it?"
"Most certainly not," said the angular lady. "It seems a fearful thing
for a little girl to do."
"But it saved the cow."
"Then you place a cow before your daughter's welfare?"
"It never did me any harm," said Merle, fiercely. "And a cow's a cow!"
Mr. Warner's crack of laughter made heads turn in his direction.
"Beyond doubt a cow is a cow," he said. "We rank 'em high out back.
Seriously, Miss Simpson, you wouldn't see an animal choke to death
rather than upset decorum, would you?
"I am glad that such incidents have not come my way," said the
spinster, vinegarishly. "I cannot but think a little girl would be
better at a good boarding school than exposed to influences of the kind
you describe. What, may I ask, will be your daughter's future?"
"Oh, she'll be pretty useful, I hope," said the squatter, cheerfully.
"There, Merle, go on with your pudding," for the subject of the
discussion showed imminent signs of bursting with wrath. "We'll take
you in hand yet and make a young lady of you. All the same, I'll be
disgusted if you ever turn your back on a cow in a bog!"
The silent young man spoke.
"I reckon," he said in a slow drawl, "that some of our old hands would
have been in a bit of a hole if their womenfolk hadn't been willin' to
lend a hand outside. My old grandmother talked half a dozen languages,
and played three or four instruments, and sang in Italian and painted
on satin, and all that sort of thing, and before she came out from
England she'd never so much as made a bed. Then she came to Sydney
with her father's regiment, and married and went up into the
Never-Never country. After that there wasn't anything she didn't do,
from fightin' blacks and bush fires and floods to helpin' clear the
land and build the house. Did it all well too. Didn't hurt her,
either, she said; she liked it. Great old sort. Lots like her, of
course. Reckon they made Australia."
"Yes, and we're proud of 'em," said Mr. Warner. He grinned. "But what
about their decorum, Miss Simpson?"
"I think the dear bishop is rising," said the spinster, acidly. "If
you will excuse me----" She left the table in the wake of the
"pontiffs."
"All the same," said Mr. Warner, when the laugh had subsided, "it isn't
quite the same thing. Those old grandmothers of ours had
decorum--stacks of it. They never lost it, even when they did a man's
work. I suppose it was because they had so much of it ground into them
when they were young. And it never did them any harm. But somehow
nowadays it doesn't seem an easy matter to put on the decorum layer
first. I don't know how it is." He looked across the table. "Got any
little girls, Mrs. Lester?"
"No, only one bad boy," replied Dick's mother.
"Just as well for your peace of mind. Girls are a great
responsibility, especially when they persist in thinking they're boys."
He tweaked his small daughter's hair. "Finished? Then suppose we go
up on deck, and you can make friends with my cabin mate."
But Merle looked across at Dick scornfully.
"I'm going to see the engines," she said, with her nose tilted. "The
chief engineer said he'd take me, an' mother said I could."
"Oh, all right," said her father, easily. "You can make friends with
Dick to-morrow." To which Dick, smarting under the double injury of
her scorn and the fact that she--a scrap of a girl--was about to revel
in the engine room, for which his whole soul hankered, registered a vow
that he'd see her farther first. His nose was as tilted as Merle's own
as he passed her on his way to the deck.