IV

No doubt one reason why our migration to Australia seemed so

surprisingly sudden a step to me was that the preliminaries were

arranged without my knowledge. Apart from this, I believe the step was

swiftly taken.

My father had no wife or family to consider. I do not think there was

a single relative left, beside myself, with whom he had maintained

intercourse of any kind. Our household effects were all sold as they

stood in the house, to a singularly urbane and gentlemanly old dealer

in such things, a Mr. Fennel, whose stock phrase: 'Pray don't put

yourself about on my account, sir, I beg,' seemed to me to form his

reply to every remark of my father's. And thus, momentous though the

hegira might be, and was, to us, I suppose it did not call for any

very serious amount of detailed preparation, once my father had made

his decision.

Looking back upon it now, in the light of some knowledge of the

subject, and of old lands and new, it seems to me open to question

whether, in all the moving story of British oversea adventuring, there

is an instance of any migration more curious than ours, or of any

person emigrating who was less suited for the venture than my father.

In the matter of our baggage and personal effects, now, the one thing

to which my father devoted serious care was something which probably

would not figure at all in any official list of articles required for

an emigrant's kit: his books.

His library consisted of some three thousand volumes, the gleanings of

a quarter of a century when books were neither so numerous nor so

cheap as they are to-day. From these he set himself the maddening task

of selecting one hundred volumes to be taken with us. The rest were to

be sold. The whole of our preparations are dominated in the retrospect

for me, by my father's absorption in the task of sifting and re-sifting

his books. Acting under his instructions, I myself handled

each one of the three thousand and odd volumes a good many times.

Eventually, we took six hundred and seventy-three volumes with us, of

which more than fifty were repurchased, at a notable advance, of

course, upon the price he paid for them, from the dealer who bought

the remainder.

This was my first insight into the subtleties of trade, and I noted

with loyal anger, in my father's interest, how contemptuously the

dealer belittled our books in buying them, and how eloquently he

dilated upon their special values in selling back to us those my

father found he could not spare. In every case these volumes were rare

and hard to come by, greatly in demand, 'the pick of the basket,' and

so forth. Well, I suppose that is commerce. At the time it seemed to

me amply to justify all my father's lofty scorn and hatred for

everything in any way connected with business.

If only the book-dealer could have adopted Mr. Fennel's praiseworthy

attitude, I thought: 'Pray don't put yourself about, sir, on my

account, I beg.' But then, Mr. Fennel, I make no doubt, was heading

straight for bankruptcy. I have sought his name in vain among Putney's

modern tradesfolk. Whereas, Mr. Siemens, the gentleman who bought our

library, apart from his various thriving establishments in London, now

cherishes his declining years, I believe, in a villa in the Italian

Riviera, and a manor house in Hampshire. Though young, when I met him

in Putney, he evidently had the root of the matter in him, from a

commercial point of view, and was possibly even a little in advance of

his time in the matter of business ability. He drove a very smart

horse, I remember, was dressed smartly, and had a smart way of saying

that business was business. Yes, I dare say Mr. Siemens was more a man

of his time than my poor father.

It was on the afternoon of May 2, 1870, the day after my tenth

birthday, that we sailed from Gravesend for Sydney, in the full-rigged

clipper ship _Ariadne_, of London, with one hundred and forty-seven

other emigrants and eighteen first-class passengers. It was, I

suppose, a part of my father's enthusiastically desperate state of

mind at this time that we were booked as steerage passengers. We were

to lay aside finally all the effete uses of sophisticated life. We

were emigrants, bent upon carving a home for ourselves out of the

virgin wilderness. Naturally, we were to travel in the steerage. And,

indeed, I have good reason to suppose that my father's supply of money

must have been pretty low at the time. But we occupied a first-class

railway carriage on the journey down to Gravesend; and I know our

porter received a bright half-crown for his services to us, for my

father's hands were occupied, and the coin was passed to me for

bestowal.

Long before the tug left us, we sat down to our first meal on board;

perhaps a hundred of us together. A weary poor woman with two babies

was on my left, and a partly intoxicated man of the coal-heaving sort

(very likely a Cabinet Minister in Australia to-day) on my father's

right. This simple soul made the mistake of endeavouring to establish

an affectionate friendship with my father, who was sufficiently

resentful of the man's mere proximity, and received his would-be

genial advances with the most freezing politeness. But the event which

precipitated a crisis was the coal-heaver's removal of his knife from

his mouth--the dexterity with which his kind can manipulate these

lethal weapons, even when partly intoxicated, is little less than

miraculous--after the safe discharge there of some succulent morsel

from his plate, to plunge it direct into the contents of the

butter-dish before my father.

Black wrath descended upon my father's face as he rose from the table,

and drew me up beside him. 'Insufferable!' he muttered, as we left

that curious place for the first and last time. I see it now with its

long, narrow, uncovered tables, stretching between clammy iron

stanchions, and supported by iron legs fitting into sockets in the

deck. It was lighted by hanging lanterns which threw queer, moving

shadows in all directions, and stank consumedly.

'Are we hogs that we should be given our swill in such a sty?' asked

my father, explosively, of some subordinate member of the crew whom we

met as we reached the open deck.

'I dunno, matey,' replied this innocent. 'Feelin' sickish, are ye?

You've started too soon.'

'Yes, I'm feeling pretty sick,' said my father, as the glimmer of the

humorous side of it all touched his mind. 'Look here, my man,' he

continued, 'here's half a crown for you. I want to see the purser of

this ship. Just show me where I can find him, like a good fellow, will

you?'

We found the purser in that condition of harassment which appears to

belong, like its uniform, to his post, when a ship is clearing the

land. He was inclined at first to adopt a pretty short way with us. He

really didn't know what emigrants wanted these days. Did they think a

ship's steerage was a _ho_-tel? And so forth.

But my father was on his mettle now, and handled his man with

considerable skill and suavity. There was no second-class

accommodation on the ship. But in the end we were taken into the

first-class ranks, at a substantial reduction from the full first-class

fares, on the understanding that we contented ourselves with a

somewhat gloomy little single-berth cabin which no one else wanted.

Here a makeshift bed was presently arranged for me, and within the

hour we emigrants from the steerage had become first-class passengers.

The translation brought such obvious and real relief to my father that

my own spirits rose instantly; I began to take great interest in our

surroundings, and, from that moment, entirely forgot those prophetic

internal twinges, those stomachic forebodings which, in the 'other

place,' as politicians say, had begun to turn my thoughts toward the

harrowing tales I had heard of sea-sickness.

My father, poor man, was not so fortunate. He began before long to pay

a heavy price in bodily affliction for all the stress and excitement

of the past few days. For a full fortnight the most virulent type of

sea-sickness had him in its horrid grip. I have since seen many other

folk in evil case from similar causes, but none so vitally affected by

the complaint as my father was, and never one who bore it with more

patient courtesy than he did. Not in the cruellest paroxysm did he

lose either his self-respect, or his consideration for me, and for

others. The mere mention of this fell complaint excites mirth in the

minds of the majority; but rarely can a man or woman be found whose

self-control is proof against its attacks; and I take pleasure in

remembering my father's admirable demeanour throughout his ordeal. In

the steerage he had hardly survived it, I think. Here, with decent

privacy, no single complaint passed his lips; and there was not a day,

hardly an hour, I believe, in which he ceased to take thought for his

small son's comfort and wellbeing. His courtesy was no skin-deep pose

with my father. No doubt we are all much cleverer and more enlightened

nowadays, but--however, that is one of the lines of thought which it

is quite unnecessary for me to pursue here.

I was quite absurdly proud of my father, I remember, when, at length,

he made his first appearance on the poop, leaning on my shoulder, his

own shoulders covered by the soft rug we called the 'Hobson rug,'

because, years before, a friend of that name had bequeathed it to us,

after a visit to the house near Russell Square. In all the time that

came afterwards, I am not sure that my father's constitution ever

fully regained the tone it lost during our first fortnight aboard the

_Ariadne_. But, if his health had suffered a set-back, his manner had

not; that distinction of bearing in him which always impressed me, in

which I took such pride, seemed to me now more than ever marked.

Child though I was, I am assured that this characteristic of my

father's had a very real existence, and was not at all the creation of

my boyish fancy. From my very earliest days I had heard it commented

upon by landladies and servants, and, too, in remarks casually

overheard from neighbours and strangers. Now, among our fellow-passengers

on board the _Ariadne_, I heard many similar comments.

Looking back from this distance I find it somewhat puzzling that in my

father's personality there should have been combined so much of real

charm, dignity, and distinction, with so marked a distaste for the

society of his fellows. Here was a man who seemed able always to

inspire interest and admiration when he did go among his equals (or

those not his equals, for that matter), who yet preferred wherever

possible to avoid every form of social intercourse. By nature he

seemed peculiarly fitted to make his mark in society; by inclination

and habit, more especially in later life, it would seem he shunned

society as the plague itself. Withal, there was not the faintest

suggestion of moroseness about him, and when circumstances did lead

him into converse with others he always conveyed an impression of

pleased interest. This product of his exceptional courtesy and

considerateness must have puzzled many people, taken in conjunction

with his invariable avoidance of intercourse wherever that could be

managed with politeness. Far more than any monetary or more practical

consideration, it was, I am certain, this desire of my father's to get

away from people which had led to our migration.

'People interrupt one so horribly,' was a remark he frequently made to

me.

V

Folk whose experience of sea travel is confined to the passengers'

quarters on board modern steamships of high tonnage can have but a

shadowy conception of what a three months' passage round the Cape

means, when it is made in a 1200 ton sailing vessel. I can pretend to

no technical knowledge of ships and seafaring; but it is always with

something of condescension in my mental attitude that I set foot on

board a steamship, or hear praise of one of the palatial modern

'smoke-stacks.' It was thus I remember that the _Ariadne's_ seamen

spoke of steamships.

I suppose room could almost be found for the _Ariadne_ in the saloons

of some of the twentieth-century Atlantic greyhounds. But I will wager

that the whole fleet of them could not show a tithe of her grace and

spirited beauty in a sea-way. And, be it noted, they would not be so

extravagantly far ahead of the _Ariadne_ even in point of speed, say,

between the Cape and Australia, when, in running her easting down with

a living gale on her quarter, she spurned the foam from her streaming

sides to the tune of a steady fourteen to fifteen knots in an hour;

'snoring along,' as seamen say, with all her cordage taut as

harp-strings, and her clouds of canvas soaring heavenward tier on tier,

strained to the extreme limit of the fabric's endurance.

From talk with my father, I knew the _Ariadne_ of mythology, and so

the sight of the patent log-line trailing in the creamy turmoil of our

wake used always to suggest imaginings to me, as I leaned gazing over

our poop rail, of a modern Theseus being rescued by this line of ours

from the labyrinthine caverns of some submarine Minotaur.

Aye, she was a brave ship, and these were brave days of continuously

stirring interest to the lad fresh from Putney and its Academy for the

Sons of Gentlemen; or, as I should probably say, from one of its

academies. I do not recall that life itself, the great spectacle, had

at this period any interest for me, as such. My musings had not

carried me so far. But the things and people about me, the play of the

elements, and the unceasing and ever-varying activities of the ship's

working, appealed to me as his love to a lover, filling my every hour

with waiting claims, each to my ardour more instant and peremptory

than its fellow.

Rhapsodies have been penned about the simple candour of children, the

unmeasured frankness of boys. These qualities were not, I think,

conspicuous in me. At least, I recall a considerable amount of

play-acting in my life on board the _Ariadne_, and, I think, in even

earlier phases. As a boy, it seems to me, I had a very keen appetite

for affection. I was somewhat emotional and sentimental, and always

interested in producing an impression upon the minds of those about

me. Without reaching the point of seeing life as a spectacle, I

believe my own small personality presented a spectacle of which I was

pretty generally and interestedly conscious. There was a good deal of

drama for me, in my own insignificant progress. I often watched

myself, and strove to gauge the impression I produced on others, and

to mould and shape this to my fancy. There may possibly be something

unpleasant, even unnatural about this, in so young a boy. I do not

know, but I am sure it is true; and so it is rightly set down here.

There was a Mrs. Armstrong among our passengers, who was accompanied

by two daughters; a bonny, romping girl of sixteen, in whom I felt

little or no interest, and a serious young woman of two or

three-and-twenty, with whom I fell in love in an absurdly solemn fashion.

Miss Armstrong had a great deal of shining fair hair, a good figure, and

pleasing dark blue eyes. That is as far as memory carries me regarding

her appearance. She rather took me up, as she might have taken up

crewel work, whatever that may be, or district visiting, or what not.

No doubt she was among the majority in whom my father inspired

interest. She talked to me in an exemplary way, and held up before me,

as I remember it, a sort of blend of little Lord Fauntleroy and the

dreadful child in _East Lynne_, as an ideal to strive after.

She assuredly meant most kindly by me, but the influence was not,

perhaps, very wholesome; or, it may be, I twisted and perverted it to

ill uses. At least, I remember devious ways in which I sought to earn

her admiration, and other yet more devious ways in which I schemed to

win petting from her. I actually used to invent small offences and

weave circumstantial romances about pretended wrong-doings, in order

to have the pleasure of confessing, with mock shame, and getting

absolution, along with caresses and sentimental promises of help to do

better in future. In retrospect it seems I was a somewhat horrid

little chap in this. I certainly adored Miss Armstrong; though in an

entirely different way from the manner of my subsequent passion for

little black-haired Nelly Fane. The Fane family consisted of the

father, mother, one boy, and two girls: Nelly, and her sister Marion,

both charming children, the first very dark, the other fair. Nelly was

a year older than I, Marion two years younger. The boy, Tom, was

within a month or two of my own age.

It might be that I was wearying a little of the solemn sentimentality

of my attachment to Miss Armstrong; possibly the pose I thought

needful for holding this young lady's regard withal proved exhausting

after a time. At all events, I remember neglecting her shamefully in

equatorial latitudes, when the _Ariadne_ was creeping along her zig-zag

course through the Doldrums. For me this period, fascinating in

scores of other ways, belongs to Nelly Fane, with her long black

curls, biscuit-coloured legs and arms, and large, melting dark eyes.

At the time the thought of being separated from this imperious little

beauty meant for me an abomination of desolation too dreadful to be

contemplated. But, looking back upon the circumstances of my suit, I

think it likely my heart had never been captivated but for jealousy,

and my trick of seeing myself as the first figure in an illustrated

romance.

There was another boy on board--I remember only his Christian name:

Fred--who, in addition to being a year older than myself, had the huge

advantage of being an experienced traveller. He was an Australian, and

had been on a visit with his parents to the Mother-country. At a quite

early stage in our passage, he won my cordial dislike by means of his

old traveller's airs, and--far more unforgiveable--the fact that he

had the temerity to refer to my father, in my hearing, as 'The old

chap who can't get his sea-legs.' I fear I never should have forgiven

him for that.

In addition, as we youngsters played together about the decks, this

Fred used to arrogate to himself always the position of leader and

director. He knew the proper names of many things of which the rest of

us were ignorant, and, where his knowledge did not carry him, I was

assured his conceit and hardihood did. To such ears as Nelly Fane's,

for instance, 'Jib-boom,' 'Fore topmast-staysail,' must have an

admirably knowledgeable note about them, I thought, even if ever so

wrongly used. My first attack upon Fred consisted in convicting him of

some such swaggering misuse of a nautical term to the which, as luck

had it, I had given careful study on the fo'c'sle-head during the

previous evening's second dog-watch, when my friends among the crew

were taking their leisure. He bore no malice, I think; in any case,

his self-esteem was a very hardy growth, and little liable to suffer

from any minor check.

We never came to blows, the Australian and myself, which was probably

as well for me, since I make no doubt the lad could have trounced me

soundly, for he was disgustingly wiry and long of limb. That was how I

saw his physical advantages. But, apart from this matter of physical

superiority, he was no match for me. In the subtler qualities of

intrigue I was his master; and he, never probably having observed

himself as a hero of romance, had to yield to my proficiency in the

art of producing a desired impression. It was in his capacity as an

old campaigner, a knowing dog, and a seasoned salt, that he had

carried Nelly Fane's heart by storm, and established himself an easy

first in her regard. And seeing this it was, I believe, which first

weakened my devotion to the fair Miss Armstrong, by turning my

attention to Nelly Fane.

I did not really deserve to win Nelly, my suit at first being based

upon foundations so unworthy. But the pursuit of her stirred me

deeply; and in the end--say, in a couple of days--I was her very

humble and devoted slave. She really was an attractive child, I fancy,

in her wilful, imperious way. And, Cupid, how I did adore her by the

time I had driven Master Fred from the field! Even my father suffered

a temporary eclipse in my regard during the first white-hot fervour of

my devotion to Nelly. I lied for her, in word and deed; I stole for

her--from the cabin pantry--and I am sure I risked life and limb for

her a dozen times, in my furious emulation of any achievement of

Fred's, in my instant adoption of any suggestion of Nelly's, however

mischievous. And how many of us could truthfully say as much of their

enthusiasm in any mature love affair? How many grown men would

deliberately risk life to win the passing approval of a mistress?

For example, I recall two typical episodes. Neither had been

remarkable, perhaps, for a boy devoid of fear or imagination; but I

was one shrewdly influenced by both qualities. There was a roomy cabin

under the _Ariadne's_ starboard counter, which served the Fane family

as a sort of sitting-room or day nursery. It had two circular port-holes,

brass-rimmed, of fairly generous proportions. Under the spur of

verbal taunts from Fred, and passive challenges from Nelly's dark

eyes, I positively succeeded in wriggling my entire body out through

one of those port-holes, feet first, until I hung by my hands outside,

my feet almost touching the water-line. And then it seemed I could not

win my way back.

Nelly, moved to tears of real grief now, was for seeking the aid of

grown-ups. I wasted precious breath in adjuring her as she loved me to

keep silence. For my part death seemed imminent and certain. But I

pictured Fred's grinning commiseration should our elders rescue me,

and--I held on. By slow degrees I got one arm and shoulder back into

the cabin, pausing there to rest. From that moment I was safe; but I

was too cunning to let the fact appear. My reward began then, and most

voluptuously I savoured it. I had Mistress Nelly on her biscuit-coloured

knees to me before I finally reached the cabin floor on my

hands, my toes still clinging to the port-hole. Poor Fred could not

possibly equal this feat. His girth would not have permitted it.

Again, there was the blazing tropical afternoon, in dead calm, when I

established a new record by touching the ship's prow under water. It

was siesta time for passengers. The watch on deck was assembled right

aft, scraping bright-work. Pitch was bubbling in the deck seams, and

every one was drowsy, excepting Nelly, Marion, Tom, Fred, and myself.

We were plotting mischief in the shadow of the _Ariadne's_ anchors,

right in the eyes of the ship. I forget the immediate cause of this

piece of foolhardiness, but I remember Fred's hated fluency about

'dolphin-strikers,' 'martingales,' and what not; and, finally, my own

assertion that I would touch the ship's forefoot, where we saw it

gleaming below the glassy surface of the water, and Fred's mocking

reply that I jolly well dared do no such a thing. Nelly's provocative

eyes were in the background, of course.

Three several times I tried and failed, swinging perilously at a

rope's end below the dolphin-striker. And then the _Ariadne_, with one

of those unaccountable movements which a ship will make at times in

the flattest of calms, brought me victory, and the narrowest escape

from extinction in one and the same moment. I swung lower than before,

and the ship ducked suddenly. I not only touched her bows below the

water-line, but had all the breath knocked out of me by them, and was

soused under water myself, as thoroughly as a Brighton bathing woman

could have done the trick for me. To this day I remember the

breathless, straining agony of the ascent, when my clothes and myself

seemed heavier than lead, and the ship's deck miles above me. My

clothes--a jersey and flannel knickerbockers--dried quickly in the

scorching sun, and no grown-up ever knew of the escapade, I think.

But, the peril of it, in a shark-infested sea!

No doubt these feats helped me to the subjugation of Nelly. Yet, after

all, in sheer physical prowess, I could not really rival Fred, who

stood a full head taller than I did. But I had a deal more of finesse

than he had, made very much better use of my opportunities, and was a

far more practised poseur. Fred was well supplied with self-esteem--a

most valuable qualification in love-making--but he lacked the

introspectively seeing eye. He might compel admiration, in his rude

fashion. He could never force a tear or steal a sigh.

Fred--Fred without a surname, I wonder what has been your lot in life,

and where you air your prosperity to-day! For, prosperous I feel

certain you are. And, who knows? Nelly may be Mrs. Fred to-day, for

aught I can tell. When all is said and done, you all of you had more

in common, one with another, and each with all, than I had with any of

you!

And that reminds me of a trifle overlooked. During all my association

with these my contemporaries on board the _Ariadne_, but with special

keenness in the beginning, I was conscious of something outside my own

experience, which they all shared. At that time it was to me just a

something which they had and I had not; a quality I could not define.

Looking back upon it I see clearly that the thing was in part

fundamental, a flaw in my temperament; and, in part, the family sense.

They all knew what 'home' meant, in a way in which I knew it not at

all. They were more carelessly genial and less serious and preoccupied

than I was. They all had mothers, too. I do not wish to say that they

were necessarily much better off than I. They had certain qualities

which I lacked, the product of experiences I had never enjoyed. And I

had various qualities which they had not. On the whole, perhaps, I

was more mature than they were; and they, perhaps, were more happy

and care-free--certainly less self-conscious--than I was. There was a

kind of Freemasonry of shared experience among them, and I had never

been initiated. They were established members of a recognised order,

to which I did not belong. They were members of families of a certain

defined status. I was an isolated small boy, with a father, and no

particular status.