SAM BUCKLEY'S EDUCATION.
This narrative which I am now writing is neither more nor less than an
account of what befell certain of my acquaintances during a period
extending over nearly, or quite, twenty years, interspersed, and let us
hope embellished, with descriptions of the country in which these
circumstances took place, and illustrated by conversations well known
to me by frequent repetition, selected as throwing light upon the
characters of the persons concerned. Episodes there are, too, which I
have thought it worth while to introduce as being more or less
interesting, as bearing on the manners of a country but little known,
out of which materials it is difficult to select those most proper to
make my tale coherent; yet such has been my object, neither to dwell on
the one hand unnecessarily on the more unimportant passages, nor on the
other hand to omit anything which may be supposed to bear on the
general course of events.
Now, during all the time above mentioned, I, Geoffry Hamlyn, have
happened to lead a most uninteresting, and with few exceptions
prosperous existence. I was but little concerned, save as a hearer, in
the catalogue of exciting accidents and offences which I chronicle. I
have looked on with the deepest interest at the lovemaking, and ended a
bachelor; I have witnessed the fighting afar off, only joining the
battle when I could not help it, yet I am a steady old fogey, with a
mortal horror of a disturbance of any sort. I have sat drinking with
the wine-bibbers, and yet at sixty my hand is as steady as a rock.
Money has come to me by mere accumulation; I have taken more pains to
spend it than to make it; in short, all through my life's drama, I have
been a spectator, and not an actor, and so in this story I shall keep
myself as much as possible in the background, only appearing personally
when I cannot help it.
Acting on this resolve I must now make my CONGE, and bid you farewell
for a few years, and go back to those few sheep which James Stockbridge
and I own in the wilderness, and continue the history of those who are
more important than myself. I must push on too, for there is a long
period of dull stupid prosperity coming to our friends at Baroona and
Toonarbin, which we must get over as quickly as is decent. Little Sam
Buckley also, though at present a most delightful child, will soon be a
mere uninteresting boy. We must teach him to read and write, and ride,
and what not, as soon as possible, and see if we can't find a young
lady--well, I won't anticipate, but go on. Go on, did I say?--jump on,
rather--two whole years at once.
See Baroona now. Would you know it? I think not. That hut where we
spent the pleasant Christmas-day you know of is degraded into the
kitchen, and seems moved backward, although it stands in the same
place, for a new house is built nearer the river, quite overwhelming
the old slab hut in its grandeur--a long low wooden house, with deep
cool verandahs all round, already festooned with passion-flowers, and
young grapevines, and fronted by a flower garden, all a-blaze with
petunias and geraniums.
It was a summer evening, and all the French windows reaching to the
ground were open to admit the cool south wind, which had just come up,
deliciously icily cold after a scorching day. In the verandah sat the
Major and the Doctor over their claret (for the Major had taken to
dining late again now, to his great comfort), and in the garden were
Mrs. Buckley and Sam watering the flowers, attended by a man who drew
water from a new-made reservoir near the house.
"I think, Doctor," said the Major, "that the habit of dining in the
middle of the day is a gross abuse of the gifts of Providence, and I'll
prove it to you. What does a man dine for?--answer me that."
"To satisfy his hunger, I should say," answered the Doctor.
"Pooh! pooh! stuff and nonsense, my good friend," said the Major; "you
are speaking at random. I suppose you will say, then, that a black
fellow is capable of dining?"
"Highly capable, as far as I can judge from what I have seen," replied
the Doctor. "A full-grown fighting black would be ashamed if he
couldn't eat a leg of mutton at a sitting."
"And you call that DINING?" said the Major. "I call it gorging. Why,
those fellows are more uncomfortable after food than before. I have
seen them sitting close before the fire and rubbing their stomachs with
mutton fat to reduce the swelling. Ha! ha! ha!--dining, eh? Oh, Lord!"
"Then if you don't dine to satisfy your hunger, what the deuce do you
eat dinners for at all?" asked the Doctor.
"Why," said the Major, spreading his legs out before him with a benign
smile, and leaning back in his chair, "I eat my dinner, not so much for
the sake of the dinner itself, as for the after-dinnerish feeling which
follows: a feeling that you have nothing to do, and that if you had
you'd be shot if you'd do it. That, to return to where I started from,
is why I won't dine in in the middle of the day."
"If that is the way you feel after dinner, I certainly wouldn't."
"All the most amiable feelings in the human breast," continued the
Major, "are brought out in their full perfection by dinner. If a fellow
were to come to me now and ask me to lend him ten pounds, I'd do it,
provided, you know, that he would fetch out the cheque-book and pen and
ink."
"Laziness is nothing," said the Doctor, "unless well carried out. I
only contradicted you, however, to draw you out; I agree entirely. Do
you know, my friend, I am getting marvellously fond of this climate."
"So am I. But then you know, Doctor, that we are sheltered from the
north wind here by the snow-ranges. The summer in Sydney, now, is
perfectly infernal. The dust is so thick you can't see your hand before
you."
"So I believe," said the Doctor. "By the bye, I got a new butterfly
to-day; rather an event, mind you, here, where there are so few."
"What is he?"
"An Hipparchia," said the Doctor, "Sam saw him first and gave chase."
"You seem to be making quite a naturalist of my boy, Doctor. I am
sincerely obliged to you. If we can make him take to that sort of thing
it may keep him out of much mischief."
"He will never get into much," said the Doctor, "unless I am mistaken;
he is the most docile child I ever came across. It is a pleasure to be
with him. What are you going to do with him?"
"He must go to school, I am afraid," said the Major with a sigh, "I
can't bring my heart to part with him; but his mother has taught him
all she knows, so I suppose he must go to school and fight, and get
flogged, and come home with a pipe in his mouth, and an oath on his
lips, with his education completed. I don't fancy his staying here
among these convict servants, when he is old enough to learn mischief."
"He'll learn as much mischief at a colonial school, I expect," said the
Doctor, "and more too. All the evil he hears from these fellows will be
like the water on a duck's back; whereas, if you send him to school in
a town, he'll learn a dozen vices he'll never hear of here. Get him a
tutor."
"That is easier said than done, Doctor. It is very hard to get a
respectable tutor in the colony."
"Here is one at your hand," said the Doctor. "Take me."
"My dear friend," said the Major, jumping up, "I would not have dared
to ask such a thing. If you would undertake him for a short time?"
"I will undertake the boy's education altogether. Potztausend, and why
not! It will be a labour of love, and therefore the more thoroughly
done. What shall he learn, now?"
"That I must leave to you."
"A weighty responsibility," said the Doctor. "No Latin or Greek, I
suppose? They will be no use to him here."
"Well--no; I suppose not. But I should like him to learn his Latin
grammar. You may depend upon it there's something in the Latin grammar."
"What use has it been to you, Major?"
"Why, the least advantage it has been to me is to give me an insight
into the construction of languages, which is some use. But while I was
learning the Latin grammar, I learnt other things besides, of more use
than the construction of any languages, living or dead. First, I learnt
that there were certain things in this world that MUST be done. Next,
that there were people in this world, of whom the Masters of Eton were
a sample, whose orders must be obeyed without question. Third, I found
that it was pleasanter in all ways to do one's duty than to leave it
undone. And last, I found out how to bear a moderate amount of birching
without any indecent outcry."
"All very useful things," said the Doctor. "Teach a boy one thing well,
and you show him how to learn others. History, I suppose?"
"As much as you like, Doctor. His mother has taught him his catechism,
and all that sort of thing, and she is the fit person, you know. With
the exception of that and the Latin grammar, I trust everything to your
discretion."
"There is one thing I leave to you, Major, if you please, and that is
corporal chastisement. I am not at all sure that I could bring myself
to flog Sam, and, if I did, it would be very inefficiently done."
"Oh, I'll undertake it," said the Major, "though I believe I shall have
an easy task. He won't want much flogging."
At this moment Mrs. Buckley approached with a basketful of
fresh-gathered flowers. "The roses don't flower well here, Doctor," she
said, "but the geraniums run mad. Here is a salmon-coloured one for
your button-hole."
"He has earned it well, Agnes," said her husband. "He has decided the
discussion we had last night by offering to undertake Sam's education
himself."
"And God's blessing on him for it!" said Mrs. Buckley warmly. "You have
taken a great load off my mind, Doctor. I should never have been happy
if that boy had gone to school. Come here, Sam."
Sam came bounding into the verandah, and clambered up on his father, as
if he had been a tree. He was now eleven years old, and very tall and
wellformed for his age. He was a good-looking boy, with regular
features, and curly chestnut hair. He had, too, the large grey-blue eye
of his father, an eye that never lost for a moment its staring
expression of kindly honesty, and the lad's whole countenance was one
which, without being particularly handsome, or even very intelligent,
won an honest man's regard at first sight.
"My dear Sam," said his mother, "leave off playing with your father's
hair, and listen to me, for I have something serious to say to you.
Last night your father and I were debating about sending you to school,
but Doctor Mulhaus has himself offered to be your tutor, thereby giving
you advantages, for love, which you never could have secured for money.
Now, the least we can expect of you, my dear boy, is that you will be
docile and attentive to him."
"I will try, Doctor dear," said Sam. "But I am very stupid sometimes,
you know."
So the good Doctor, whose head was stored with nearly as much of human
knowledge as mortal head could hold, took simple, guileless little Sam
by the hand, and led him into the garden of knowledge. Unless I am
mistaken, these two will pick more flowers than they will dig potatoes
in the aforesaid garden, but I don't think that two such honest souls
will gather much unwholesome fruit. The danger is that they will waste
their time, which is no danger at all, but a certainty.
I believe that such an education as our Sam got from the Doctor would
have made a slattern and a faineant out of half the boys in England. If
Sam had been a clever boy, or a conceited boy, he would have ended with
a superficial knowledge of things in general, imagining he knew
everything when he knew nothing, and would have been left in the end,
without a faith either religious or political, a useless, careless man.
This danger the Doctor foresaw in the first month, and going to the
Major abruptly, as he walked up and down the garden, took his arm, and
said,--
"See here, Buckley. I have undertaken to educate that boy of yours, and
every day I like the task better, and yet every day I see that I have
undertaken something beyond me. His appetite for knowledge is
insatiable, but he is not an intellectual boy; he makes no deductions
of his own, but takes mine for granted. He has no commentary on what he
learns, but that of a dissatisfied idealist like me, a man who has been
thrown among circumstances sufficiently favourable to make a prime
minister out of some men, and yet who has ended by doing nothing.
Another thing: this is my first attempt at education, and I have not
the schoolmaster's art to keep him to details. Every day I make new
resolutions, and every day I break them. The boy turns his great eyes
upon me in the middle of some humdrum work, and asks me a question. In
answering, I get off the turnpike road, and away we go from lane to
lane, from one subject to another, until lesson-time is over, and
nothing done. And, if it were merely time wasted, it could be made up,
but he remembers every word I say, and believes in it like gospel, when
I myself couldn't remember half of it to save my life. Now, my dear
fellow, I consider your boy to be a very sacred trust to me, and so I
have mentioned all this to you, to give you an opportunity of removing
him to where he might be under a stricter discipline, if you thought
fit. If he was like some boys, now, I should resign my post at once
but, as it is, I shall wait till you turn me out, for two reasons. The
first is, that I take such delight in my task, that I do not care to
relinquish it; and the other is, that the lad is naturally so orderly
and gentle, that he does not need discipline, like most boys."
"My dear Doctor," replied Major Buckley, "listen to me. If we were in
England, and Sam could go to Eton, which, I take it you know, is the
best school in the world, I would still earnestly ask you to continue
your work. He will probably inherit a great deal of money, and will not
have to push his way in the world by his brains; so that close
scholarship will be rather unnecessary. I should like him to know
history well and thoroughly; for he may mix in the political life of
this little colony by and by. Latin grammar, you know," he said,
laughing, "is indispensable. Doctor, I trust my boy with you because I
know that you will make him a gentleman, as his mother, with God's
blessing, will make him a Christian."
So, the Doctor buckled to his task again, with renewed energy; to
Euclid, Latin grammar, and fractions. Sam's good memory enabled him to
make light of the grammar, and the fractions too were no great
difficulty, but the Euclid was an awful trial. He couldn't make out
what it was all about. He got on very well until he came nearly to the
end of the first book, and then getting among the parallelogram
"props," as we used to call them (may their fathers' graves be
defiled!), he stuck dead. For a whole evening did he pore patiently
over one of them till A B, setting to C D, crossed hands, poussetted,
and whirled round "in Sahara waltz" through his throbbing head.
Bed-time, but no rest! Whether he slept or not he could not tell. Who
could sleep with that long-bodied, ill-tempered-looking parallelogram A
H standing on the bed-clothes, and crying out, in tones loud enough to
waken the house, that it never had been, nor never would be equal to
the fat jolly square C K? So, in the morning, Sam woke to the
consciousness that he was farther off from the solution than ever, but,
having had a good cry, went into the study and tackled to it again.
No good! Breakfast time, and matters much worse! That long peaked-nose
vixen of a triangle A H C, which yesterday Sam had made out was equal
to half the parallelogram and half the square, now had the audacity to
declare that she had nothing to do with either of them; so what was to
be done now?
After breakfast Sam took his book and went out to his father, who was
sitting smoking in the verandah. He clambered up on to his knee, and
then began:--
"Father, dear, see here; can you understand this? You've got to prove,
you know,--oh, dear! I've forgot that now."
"Let's see," said the Major; "I am afraid this is a little above me.
There's Brentwood, now, could do it; he was in the Artillery, you know,
and learnt fortification, and that sort of thing. I don't think I can
make much hand of it, Sam."
But Sam had put his head upon his father's shoulder, and was crying
bitterly.
"Come, come, my old man," said the Major, "don't give way, you know;
don't be beat."
"I can't make it out at all," said Sam, sobbing. "I've got such a
buzzing in my head with it! And if I can't do it I must stop; because I
can't go on to the next till I understand this. Oh, dear me!"
"Lay your head there a little, my boy, till it gets clearer; then
perhaps you will be able to make it out. You may depend on it that you
ought to learn it, or the good Doctor wouldn't have set it to you:
never let a thing beat you, my son."
So Sam cried on his father's shoulder a little, and then went in with
his book; and not long after, the Doctor looked in unperceived, and saw
the boy with his elbows on the table and the book before him. Even
while he looked a big tear fell plump into the middle of A H; so the
Doctor came quietly in and said,--
"Can't you manage it, Sam?"
Sam shook his head.
"Just give me hold of the book; will you, Sam?"
Sam complied without word or comment; the Doctor sent it flying through
the open window, halfway down the garden. "There!" said he, nodding his
head, "that's the fit place for him this day: you've had enough of him
at present; go and tell one of the blacks to dig some worms, and we'll
make holiday and go a fishing."
Sam looked at the Doctor, and then through the window at his old enemy
lying in the middle of the flowerbed. He did not like to see the poor
book, so lately his master, crumpled and helpless, fallen from its high
estate so suddenly. He would have gone to its assistance, and picked it
up and smoothed it, the more so as he felt that he had been beaten.
The Doctor seemed to see everything. "Let it lie here, my child," he
said; "you are not in a position to assist a fallen enemy; you are
still the vanquished party. Go and get the worms."
He went, and when he came back he found the Doctor sitting beside his
father in the verandah, with a penknife in one hand and the ace of
spades in the other. He cut the card into squares, triangles, and
parallelograms, while Sam looked on, and, demonstrating as he went,
fitted them one into the other, till the boy saw his bugbear of a
proposition made as clear as day before his eyes.
"Why," said Sam, "that's all as clear as need be. I understand it. Now
may I pick the book up, Doctor?"
History was the pleasantest part of all Sam's tasks, for they would sit
in the little room given up for a study, with the French windows open
looking on the flower-garden, Sam reading aloud and the Doctor making
discursive commentaries. At last, one day the Doctor said,--
"My boy, we are making too much of a pleasure of this: you must really
learn your dates. Now tell me the date of the accession of Edward the
Sixth."
No returns.
"Ah! I thought so: we must not be so discursive. We'll learn the dates
of the Grecian History, as being an effort of memory, you not having
read it yet."
But this plan was rather worse than the other; for one morning, Sam
having innocently asked, at half-past eleven, what the battle of
Thermopylae was, Mrs. Buckley coming in, at one, to call them to lunch,
found the Doctor, who had begun the account of that glorious fight in
English, and then gone on to German, walking up and down the room in a
state of excitement, reciting to Sam, who did not know delta from psi,
the soul-moving account of it from Herodotus in good sonorous Greek.
She asked, laughing, "What language are you talking now, my dear
Doctor?"
"Greek, madam, Greek! and the very best of Greek!"
"And what does Sam think of it? I should like you to learn Greek, my
boy, if you can."
"I thought he was singing, mother," said Sam; but after that the lad
used to sit delighted, by the river side, when they were fishing, while
the Doctor, with his musical voice, repeated some melodious ode of
Pindar's.
And so the intellectual education proceeded, with more or less energy;
and meanwhile the physical and moral part was not forgotten, though the
two latter, like the former, were not very closely attended to, and
left a good deal to Providence. (And, having done your best for a boy,
in what better hands can you leave him?) But the Major, as an old
soldier, had gained a certain faith in the usefulness of physical
training; so, when Sam was about twelve, you might have seen him any
afternoon on the lawn, with his father, the Major, patiently teaching
him singlestick, and Sam as patiently learning, until the boy came to
be so marvellously active on his legs, and to show such rapidity of eye
and hand, that the Major, on one occasion, having received a more than
usually agonizing cut on the forearm, remarked that he thought he was
not quite so active on his pins as formerly, and that he must hand the
boy over to the Doctor.
"Doctor," said he that day, "I have taught my boy ordinary sword play
till, by Jove, sir, he is getting quicker than I am. I wish you would
take him in hand and give him a little fencing."
"Who told you I could fence?" said the Doctor.
"Why, I don't know; no one, I think. I have judged, I fancy, more by
seeing you flourish your walking-stick than anything else. You are a
fencer, are you not?"
The Doctor laughed. He was, in fact, a consummate MAITRE D'ARMES; and
Captain Brentwood, before spoken of, no mean fencer, coming to Baroona
on a visit, found that our friend could do exactly as he liked with
him, to the Captain's great astonishment. And Sam soon improved under
his tuition, not indeed to the extent of being a master of the weapon;
he was too large and loosely built for that; but, at all events, so far
as to gain an upright and elastic carriage, and to learn the use of his
limbs.
The Major issued an edict, giving the most positive orders against its
infringement, that Sam should never mount a horse without his special
leave and licence. He taught him to ride, indeed, but would not give
him much opportunity for practising it. Once or twice a-week he would
take him out, but seldom oftener. Sam, who never dreamt of questioning
the wisdom and excellence of any of his father's decisions, rather
wondered at this; pondering in his own mind how it was that, while all
the lads he knew around, now getting pretty numerous, lived, as it
were, on horseback, never walking a quarter of a mile on any occasion,
he alone should be discouraged from it. "Perhaps," he said to himself
one day, "he doesn't want me to make many acquaintances. Its true,
Charley Delisle smokes and swears, which is very ungentlemanly; but
Cecil Mayford, Dad says, is a perfect little gentleman, and I ought to
see as much of him as possible, and yet he wouldn't give me a horse to
go to their muster. Well, I suppose he has some reason for it."
One holiday the Doctor and the Major were sitting in the verandah after
breakfast, when Sam entered to them, and, clambering on to his father
as his wont was, said,--
"See here, father! Harry is getting in some young beasts at the
stockyard hut, and Cecil Mayford is coming over to see if any of theirs
are among them; may I go out and meet him?"
"To be sure, my boy; why not?"
"May I have Bronsewing, father? He is in the stable."
"It is a nice cool day, and only four miles; why not walk out, my boy?"
Sam looked disappointed, but said nothing.
"I know all about it, my child," said the Major; "Cecil will be there
on Blackboy, and you would like to show him that Bronsewing is the
superior pony of the two. That's all very natural; but still I say, get
your hat, Sam, and trot through the forest on your own two legs, and
bring Cecil home to dinner."
Sam still looked disappointed, though he tried not to show it. He went
and got his hat, and, meeting the dogs, got such a wild welcome from
them that he forgot all about Bronsewing. Soon his father saw him
merrily crossing the paddock with the whole kennel of the
establishment, Kangaroo dogs, cattle dogs, and colleys, barking
joyously around him.
"There's a good lesson manfully learnt, Doctor," said the Major; "he
has learnt to sacrifice his will to mine without argument, because he
knows I have always a reason for things. I want that boy to ride as
little as possible, but he has earned an exception in his favour
to-day.--Jerry!" (After a few calls the stableman appeared.) "Put Mr.
Samuel's saddle on Bronsewing, and mine on Ricochette, and bring them
round."
So Sam, walking cheerily forward singing, under the light and shadow of
the old forest, surrounded by his dogs, hears horses' feet behind him,
and looking back sees his father riding and leading Bronsewing saddled.
"Jump up, my boy," said the Major; "Cecil shall see what Bronsewing is
like, and how well you can sit him. The reason I altered my mind was
that I might reward you for acting like a man, and not arguing. Now, I
don't want you to ride much yet for a few years. I don't want my lad to
grow up with a pair of bow legs like a groom, and probably something
worse, from living on horseback before his bones are set. You see I
have a good reason for what I do."
But I think that the lessons Sam liked best of all were the swimming
lessons, and at a very early age he could swim and dive like a black,
and once when disporting himself in the water, when not more than
thirteen, poor Sam nearly had a stop put to his bathing for ever, and
that in a very frightful manner.
His father and he had gone down to bathe one hot noon; the Major had
swum out and was standing on the rock wiping himself while Sam was
still disporting in the mid-river; as he watched the boy he saw what
seemed a stick upon the water, and then, as he perceived the ripple
around it, the horrible truth burst on the affrighted father: it was a
large black snake crossing the river, and poor little Sam was swimming
straight towards it, all unconscious of his danger.
The Major cried out and waved his hand; the boy, seeing something was
wrong, turned and made for the shore, and the next moment his father,
bending his body back, hurled himself through the air and alighted in
the water alongside of him, clutching him round the body, and heading
down the river with furious strokes.
"Don't cling, Sam, or get frightened; make for the shore."
The lad, although terribly frightened at he knew not what, with
infinite courage seconded his father's efforts although he felt
sinking. In a few minutes they were safe on the bank, in time for them
to see the reptile land, and crawling up the bank disappear among the
rocks.
"God has been very good to us, my son. You have been saved from a
terrible death. Mind you don't breathe a word to your mother about
this."
That night Sam dreamt that he was in the coils of a snake, but waking
up found that his father was laid beside him in his clothes with one
arm round his neck, so he went to sleep again and thought no more of
the snake.
"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not"--a saying which it
is just possible you have heard before. I can tell you where it comes
from: it is one of the apothegms of the king of a little eastern nation
who at one time were settled in Syria, and whose writings are not much
read now-a-days, in consequence of the vast mass of literature of a
superior kind which this happy century has produced. I can recommend
the book, however, as containing some original remarks, and being
generally worth reading. The meaning of the above quotation (and the
man who said it, mind you, had at one time a reputation for shrewdness)
is, as I take it, that a man's morals are very much influenced by the
society he is thrown among; and although in these parliamentary times
we know that kings must of necessity be fools, yet in this instance I
think that the man shows some glimmerings of reason, for his remark
tallies singularly with my own personal observation; so, acting on
this, while I am giving you the history of this little wild boy of the
bush, I cannot do better than give some account of the companions with
whom he chiefly assorted out of school-hours.
With broad intelligent forehead, with large loving hazel eyes, with a
frill like Queen Elizabeth, with a brush like a fox; deep in the
brisket, perfect in markings of black, white, and tan; in sagacity a
Pitt, in courage an Anglesey, Rover stands first on my list, and claims
to be king of Colley-dogs. In politics I should say Conservative of the
high Protectionist sort. Let us have no strange dogs about the place to
grub up sacred bones, or we will shake out our frills and tumble them
in the dust. Domestic cats may mioul in the garden at night to a
certain extent, but a line must be drawn; after that they must be
chased up trees and barked at, if necessary, all night. Opossums and
native cats are unfit to cumber the earth, and must be hunted into
holes, wherever possible. Cows and other horned animals must not come
into the yard, or even look over the garden fence, under penalties.
Black fellows must be barked at, and their dogs chased to the uttermost
limits of the habitable globe. Such were the chief points of the creed
subscribed to by Sam's dog Rover.
All the love that may be between dog and man, and man and dog, existed
between Sam and Rover. Never a fresh cheery morning when the boy arose
with the consciousness of another happy day before him, but that the
dog was waiting for him as he stepped from his window into clear
morning air. Never a walk in the forest, but that Rover was his merry
companion. And what would lessons have been without Rover looking in
now and then with his head on one side, and his ears cocked, to know
when he would be finished and come out to play?
Oh, memorable day, when Sam got separated from his father in the Yass,
and, looking back, saw a cloud of dust in the road, and dimly descried
Rover, fighting valiantly against fearful odds, with all the dogs in
the township upon him! He rode back, and prayed for assistance from the
men lounging in front of the publichouse; who, pitying his distress,
pulled off all the dogs till there were only left Rover and a great
white bulldog to do battle. The fight seemed going against Sam's dog;
for the bulldog had him by the neck, and held him firm, so that he
could do nothing. Nevertheless, mind yourself, master bulldog; you've
only got a mouthful of long hair there; and when you do let go, I
think, there is danger for you in those fierce gleaming eyes, and
terrible grinning fangs.
Sam was crying; and the men round were saying, "Oh! take the bulldog
off; the colley's no good to him,"--when a man suddenly appeared at
Sam's side, and called out,
"I'll back the colley for five pounds, and here's my money!"
Half-a-dozen five-pound notes were ready for him at once; and he had
barely got the stakes posted before the event proved he was right. In
an evil moment for him the bulldog loosed his hold, and, ere he had
time to turn round, Rover had seized him below the eye, and was
dragging him about the road, worrying him as he would worry an opossum:
so the discomfited owner had to remove his bulldog to save his life.
Rover, after showing his teeth and shaking himself, came to Sam as
fresh as a daisy; and the new comer pocketed his five pounds.
"I am so much obliged to you," said Sam, turning to him, "for taking my
dog's part! They were all against me."
"I'm much obliged to your dog, sir, for winning me five pound so easy.
But there ain't a many bad dogs, or bad men either, about Major
Buckley's house."
"Then you know us?" said Sam.
"Ought to it, sir. An old Devonshire man. Mr. Hamlyn's stud-groom,
sir--Dick."
Well, as I am going to write Rover's life, in three volumes post
octavo, I won't any further entrench on my subject matter, save to say
that, while on the subject of Sam's education, I could not well omit a
notice of the aforesaid Rover. For, I think that all a man can learn
from a dog, Sam learnt from him; and that is something. Now let us go
on to the next of his notable acquaintances.
Who is this glorious, blue-eyed, curly-headed boy, who bursts into the
house like a whirlwind, making it ring again with merry laughter? This
is Jim Brentwood, of whom we shall see much anon.
At Waterloo, when the French cavalry were coming up the hill, and our
artillerymen were running for the squares, deftly trundling their
gun-wheels before them, it happened that there came running towards the
square where Major Buckley stood like a tower of strength (the tallest
man in the regiment), an artillery officer, begrimed with mud and
gunpowder, and dragging a youth by the collar, or rather, what seemed
to be the body of a youth. Some cried out to him to let go; but he
looked back, seeming to measure the distance between the cavalry and
the square, and then, never loosing his hold, held on against hope.
Every one thought he would be too late; when some one ran out of the
square (men said it was Buckley), and, throwing the wounded lad over
his shoulder, ran with him into safety; and a cheer ran along the line
from those who saw him do it. Small time for cheering then; for neither
could recover his breath before there came a volley of musketry, and
all around them, outside the bayonets, was a wild sea of fierce men's
faces, horses' heads, gleaming steel, and French blasphemy. A strange
scene for the commencement of an acquaintance! And yet it throve; for
that same evening, Buckley, talking to his Colonel, saw the artillery
officer coming towards them, and asked who he might be?
"That," said the Colonel, "is Brentwood of the Artillery, who ran away
with Lady Kate Bingley, and they haven't a rap to bless themselves
with, sir. It was her brother that you and he fetched into the square
to-day."
And so began a friendship which lasted the lives of both men; and, I
doubt not, will last their sons' lives too. For Brentwood lived within
thirty miles of the Major, and their sons spent much of their time
together, having such a friendship for one another as only boys can
have.
Captain Brentwood's son Jim was a very different boy to Sam, though a
very fine fellow too. Mischief and laughter were the apparent objects
of his life; and when the Doctor saw him approaching the house, he used
to put away Sam's lesson-books with a sigh and wait for better times.
The Captain had himself undertaken his son's education, and, being a
somewhat dreamy man, excessively attached to mathematics, Jim had got,
altogether, a very remarkable education indeed; which, however, is
hardly to our purpose just now. Brentwood, I must say, was a widower,
and a kindhearted, easy-going man; he had, besides, a daughter, who was
away at school. Enough of them at present.
The next of Sam's companions who takes an important part in this
history is Cecil Mayford--a delicate, clever little dandy, and
courageous withal; with more brains in his head, I should say, than Sam
and Jim could muster between them. His mother was a widow, who owned
the station next down the river from the Buckleys', distant about five
miles, and which, since the death of her husband, Doctor Mayford, she
had managed with the assistance of an overseer. She had, besides Cecil,
a little daughter of great beauty.
Also, I must here mention that the next station below Mrs. Mayford's,
on the river, distant by the windings of the valley fifteen miles, and
yet, in consequence of a bend, scarcely ten from Major Buckley's at
Baroona, was owned and inhabited by Yahoos (by name Donovan), with whom
we had nothing to do. But this aforesaid station, which is called
Garoopna, will shortly fall into other hands, when you will see that
many events of deep importance will take place there, and many pleasant
hours spent there by all our friends, more particularly one--by name
Sam.
"There is one other left of whom I must say something here, and more
immediately. The poor, puling little babe, born in misery and disaster,
Mary Hawker's boy Charles!"
Toonarbin was but a short ten miles from Baroona, and, of course, the
two families were as one. There was always a hostage from the one house
staying as a visitor in the other; and, under such circumstances, of
course, Charles and Sam were much together, and, as time went on, got
to be firm friends.
Charles was two years younger than Sam; the smallest of all the lads,
and perhaps the most unhappy. For the truth must be told: he was morose
and uncertain in his temper; and although all the other boys bore with
him most generously, as one whom they had heard was born under some
great misfortune, yet he was hardly a favourite amongst them; and the
poor boy, sometimes perceiving this, would withdraw from his play, and
sulk alone, resisting all the sober, kind inducements of Sam, and the
merry, impetuous persuasions of Jim, to return.
But he was a kind, good-hearted boy, nevertheless. His temper was not
under control; but, after one of his fierce, volcanic bursts of
ill-humour, he would be acutely miserable and angry with himself for
days, particularly if the object of it had been Jim or Sam, his two
especial favourites. On one occasion, after a causeless fit of anger
with Jim, while the three were at Major Buckley's together, he got his
pony and rode away home, secretly speaking to no one. The other two
lamented all the afternoon that he had taken the matter so seriously,
and were debating even next morning going after him to propitiate him,
when Charles reappeared, having apparently quite recovered his temper,
but evidently bent upon something.
He had a bird, a white corrella, which could talk and whistle
surprisingly, probably, in fact, the most precious thing he owned. This
prodigy he had now brought back in a basket as a peace-offering, and
refused to be comforted, unless Jim accepted it as a present.
"But see, Charley," said Jim, "I was as much in the wrong as you were"
(which was not fact, for Jim was perfectly innocent). "I wouldn't take
your bird for the world."
But Charles said that his mother approved of it, and if Jim didn't take
it he'd let it fly.
"Well, if you will, old fellow," said Jim, "I'll tell you what I would
rather have. Give me Fly's dun pup instead, and take the bird home."
So this was negotiated after a time, and the corrella was taken back to
Toonarbin, wildly excited by the journey, and calling for strong liquor
all the way home.
Those who knew the sad circumstances of poor Charles's birth (the
Major, the Doctor, and Mrs. Buckley) treated him with such kindness and
consideration, that they won his confidence and love. In any of his
Berserk fits, if his mother were not at hand, he would go to Mrs.
Buckley and open his griefs; and her motherly tact and kindness seldom
failed to still the wild beatings of that poor, sensitive, silly little
heart, so that in time he grew to love her as only second to his mother.
Such is my brief and imperfect, and I fear tedious account of Sam's
education, and of the companions with whom he lived, until the boy had
grown into a young man, and his sixteenth birthday came round, on which
day, as had been arranged, he was considered to have finished his
education, and stand up, young as he was, as a man.
Happy morning, and memorable for one thing at least--that his father,
coming into his bedroom and kissing his forehead, led him out to the
front door, where was a groom holding a horse handsomer than any Sam
had seen before, which pawed the gravel impatient to be ridden, and ere
Sam had exhausted half his expressions of wonder and admiration--that
his father told him the horse was his, a birthday-present from his
mother.