IV

When my eyes opened next morning, dawn, though near at hand, had not

yet come. His pale-robed heralds were busy, however, diffusing that

sort of nacreous haze which in coastal Australia lights the way for

each day's coming. Looking out over the pillow of my cot I saw Ted

among the trees, girthing the pack-saddle on Jerry. In a very few

moments I was beside him, and in five minutes he had started on his

journey.

'I'll be in Warrina for breakfast,' he said.

I walked a few hundred yards beside him, and the last glimpse I caught

of him, at a bend over which the track rose a little, showed Ted

seated sideways on the horse's hindquarters, one hand resting on the

pack-saddle, the other waving overhead to me. A precarious perch I

thought it, but as it saved him from the final degradation of walking,

I have no doubt it suited Ted well enough.

The sun was still some little way below the horizon when Ted

disappeared, and I was perhaps a quarter of a mile from camp. Inland,

I had very likely been bushed. Here, vague though the track was, the

sea's incessant call was an unfailing guide. But it was in those few

minutes, spent in walking back towards our tent, that I was given my

first taste of solitude in the Australian bush; and, boy that I was,

it impressed me greatly. It was a permanent addition to my narrow

store of impressions, and it is with me yet.

At such times the Australian bush has qualities which distinguish it

from any other parts of the world known to me. I have known other

places and times far more eerie. To go no farther there are parts of

the bush in which thousands of trees, being ring-barked, have died and

become ghosts of trees. Seen in the light of a half moon, when the sky

is broken by wind-riven cloud, these spectral inhabitants of the bush,

with their tattered winding sheets of corpse-white bark, are

distinctly more eerie than anything the dawn had to show me beside

Livorno Bay.

Withal, the half-hour before sunrise has a peculiar quality of its

own, in the bush, which I found very moving and somewhat awe-inspiring

upon first acquaintance. There was a hush which one could feel and

hear; a silence which exercised one's hearing more than any sound. And

yet it was not a silence at all; for the sea never was still there. It

was as though the bush and all that dwelt therein held its breath,

waiting, waiting for a portent; and, meantime, watching me. In a few

moments I found myself also waiting, conscious of each breath I drew.

It was not so much eerie as solemn. Yes, I think it was the solemnity

of that bush which so impressed me, and for the time so humbled me.

A few moments later and the kindly brightness of the new-risen sun was

glinting between tree-trunks, the bush began to breathe naturally, and

I was off at a trot for my morning dabble in the surf.

My father and I made but a poor show as housekeepers that day. I

suppose we neither of us had ever washed a plate, or even boiled a

kettle. In all such matters of what may be called outdoor domesticity

(as in the use of such primitive and all-round serviceable tools as

the axe), the Colonial-born man has a great advantage over his Home-born

kinsman, in that he acquires proficiency in these matters almost

as soon and quite as naturally as he learns to walk and talk. And not

otherwise can the sane easy mastery of things be acquired.

My father had some admirably sound theories about cooking. He had

knowledge enough most heartily to despise the Frenchified menus which,

I believe, were coming into vogue in London when we left it, and

warmly to appreciate the sterling virtue of good English cookery and

food. The basic aim in genuine English cookery is the conservation of

the natural flavours and essences of the food cooked. And, since sound

English meats and vegetables are by long odds the finest in the world,

there could be no better purpose in cooking than this. Subtle methods

and provocative sauces, which give their own distinctive flavour to

the dishes in which they are used, are well enough for less favoured

lands than England, and a much-needed boon, no doubt. They are a

wasteful mistake in England, or were, at all events, so long as

unadulterated English food was available.

My father taught me these truths long ago, and I am an implicit

believer in them to-day. All his theories about such matters were

sound; and it may be that, in a properly appointed kitchen, he could

have turned out an excellent good meal--given the right mood for the

task. But I will admit that in Livorno Bay, both on this our first day

alone there, and ever afterwards, my father's only attempts at

domestic work were of the most sketchy and least satisfactory

description; his grip of our housekeeping was of the feeblest, and in

a very short time the matter fell entirely into my hands when Ted was

not with us. Ted was my exemplar; from him such knowledge and ability

as I acquired were derived. But to his shrewd practicality I was able

to add something, in the shape of theory evolved from my father's

conversation; and thus presently I obtained a quite respectable grasp

of bush domesticity.

This day of Ted's absence in Werrina we devoted to a more or less

systematic exploration of our territory. My father was in a cheery

vein, and entertained me by bestowing names upon the more salient

features of our domain. The two horns of Livorno Bay, I remember, were

Gog and Magog; the lagoon remained always just The Lagoon; the timber

belt was Arden; our camp, Zoar; and so forth. We found an eminently

satisfactory little spring, not quite so near at hand as the water-hole

from which Ted had drawn our supplies till now, but yielding

brighter, fresher water. And we botanised with the aid of a really

charming little manuscript book, bound in kangaroo-skin, and given to

my father by the widow of a Queensland squatter whom we had met on the

coasting steamer. That little volume is among my few treasured

possessions to-day. Some of its watercolour sketches look a little

worn and pallid, after all these years, but it is a most instructive

book; and from it came all my first knowledge of the various wattles,

the different mahoganies, the innumerable gums, the ferns, creepers,

and wild flowers of the bush.

It was almost dark when Ted returned--in a cart. We were greatly

surprised to see Jerry between the shafts of this ancient vehicle, and

my father found it hard to credit that any cart could be driven over

the bush track by which we had travelled, with its stumps and holes

and sudden dips to watercourses. However, there the cart was, its

harness plentifully patched with pieces of cord and wire; and it

seemed well laden, too.

'Who lent it you?' asked my father. And Ted explained how the cart had

been offered to him for L3, and how, at length, he had bought it for

L2, 5s. and a drink. It seemed a sin to miss such a chance, but if my

father really did not want it, well, he, Ted, would pay for it out of

his earnings. Of course my father accepted responsibility for the

purchase, and very useful the crazy old thing proved as time went on;

for, though its collapse, like that of other more important

institutions, seemed always imminent, it never did actually dissolve

in our time, and only occasionally did it shed any vital portion of

its fabric. Even after such minor catastrophes, it always bore up

nobly under the rude first (and last) aid we could give with cord, or

green-hide and axed wood.

To my inexperience it seemed that Ted had brought with him a wide

assortment of most of the commodities known to civilisation. The

unloading of the cart was to me as the enjoyment of a monstrous bran-pie;

an entertainment I had heard of, but never seen. And when I heard

there was certainly one more load, and probably two, to come, I felt

that we really were rich beyond the dreams of most folk. I recalled

the precise manner in which Fred (the _Ariadne_ rival and

fellow-passenger, whose surname I never knew) had wilted when he heard

that my father and I had intended travelling steerage, and from my heart

I wished he could see this cart-load of assorted goods. 'Goods' was the

correct word, I thought, for such wholesale profusion; and 'cart-load'

had the right spaciousness to indicate a measure of our abundance.

There were several large sheets of galvanised iron, appearing exactly

as one in the cart, but covering a notable expanse of ground when

spread out singly. These were for a roof in the place of the saloon

skylight. My father had pished and tushed and pressed for a bark roof;

but Ted, in his bush wisdom, had insisted on the prosaic 'tin,' as a

catchment area for rain-water to be stored in the two ship's tanks.

There were brooms, scrubbing-brushes, kettles, pots, pans, crockery,

fishing-lines, ammunition for Ted's highly lethal old gun, and there

were stores. I marvelled that stores so numerous and varied could have

come out of Werrina. My imagination was particularly fired by the

contemplation of a package said to contain a gross of boxes of

matches. Reckoning on fifty to the box, I struggled for some time with

a computation of the total number of our matches, giving it up finally

when I had reached figures which might have thrilled a Rothschild. Our

sugar was not in blue paper packages of a pound weight, but in a sack,

as it might be for the sweetening of an army corps' porridge. And our

tea! Like the true Australian he was, Ted had actually brought us a

twenty-six pound case of tea. It was a wondrous collection, and I drew

a long breath when I remembered that there was more, much more, to

come. Here were nails, not in spiral twists of paper, but in solid

seven-pound packages, and quite a number of them.

Had I been a shopkeeper's son, I suppose these trifles from Werrina

would have been esteemed by me at something like their real value. So

I rejoice that I was not a shopkeeper's son, for I still cherish a

lively recollection of the glad feeling of security and comfortable

well-being which filled my breast as I paced round and about our cart

and all it had brought us. Long before sun-up next morning, Ted was

off again to Werrina; but, seeing our incapacity on the domestic side,

the good fellow gave an hour or two before starting to washing up and

cooking work; and I pretended to work with him, out there in the

star-light, conversing the while in whispers to avoid disturbing my

father.

Two more journeys Ted made, and returned fully laden both times,

the old cart fairly groaning under the weight of goods it held. And then

the services of a bullock-driver and his team and dray had

subsequently to be requisitioned to bring out our English boxes and

baggage, including the cases of my father's books. Those books, how

they tempt one to musing digressions.... But of that in its place.

By the time the carrier's work was done we had established something

of a routine of life, though this was subject to a good deal of

variation and disorder, as I remember, so long as the tent was in use.

Ted had arranged with butcher and storekeeper both to meet one of us

once a week at a point distant some six miles from Livorno Bay, where

our track crossed a road. Our bread, of course, we baked for

ourselves; and excellent bread it was, while Ted made it. I believe

that even when the task of making it fell into my hands, it was more

palatable than baker's bread; certainly my father thought so, and that

was enough for me.

Our hardest work, by far, was the cleaning of the _Livorno_. There was

a spring cleaning with a vengeance! We used a mixture of soft soap and

soda and sand, which made our hands all mottled: huge brown freckles

over an unwholesome-looking, indurated, fish-belly grey. The stuff

made one's finger-ends smart horridly, I remember. For days on end it

seemed we lived in this mess; our feet and legs and arms all bare, and

perspiration trickling down our noses, while soapy water and sand

crept up our arms and all over our bodies. My father insisted on doing

his share, though frequently driven by mere exhaustion to pause and

lie down at full length upon the nearest dry spot. I have always

regretted his persistence at this task, for which at that time he was

totally unfit.

However, the scraping and sanding and scrubbing were ended at last,

and I will say that I believe we made a very creditable job of it. We

could not give back to our barque the soundness of her youth, her

sea-going prime, but I think we made her scrupulously clean and sweet;

and I shall not forget the jubilant sense of achievement which spurred us

on all through the scorching hot day upon which we really installed

ourselves.

Ted had rigged an excellent table between the saloon stanchions, and

three packing-cases with blankets over them looked quite sumptuous and

ottoman-like, as seats. Our bedding was arranged in the solid hardwood

bunks which had accommodated the captain and mates of the _Livorno_

what time she made her first exit from the harbour of Genoa. Our

stores were neatly stowed in various lockers, and in Ted's famous

'sideboard'; our kitchen things found their appointed places in the

galley; our incongruous skylight roof, with its guttering and adjacent

tanks, awaited their baptism of rain; my father's books were arranged

on shelves of Ted's construction; our various English belongings,

looking inexpressibly choice, intimate, and valuable in their new

environment, were disposed with a view to convenience, and, be it

said, to appearances; and--here was our home.

We were all very tired that night, but we were gay over our supper,

and it was most unusually late before I slept. Late as that was,

however, I could see by its reflected light on the deck beams that my

father's candle was burning still. And when I chanced to wake, long

afterwards, I could hear, until I fell asleep again, the slight sound

he made in walking softly up and down the poop deck--a lonely man who

had not found rest as yet; who, despite bright flashes of gaiety, was

far from happy, a fact better understood and more deeply regretted by

his small son than he knew.

V

My first serious preoccupation regarding ways and means--the money

question--began, I think, in the neighbourhood of my eleventh

birthday, and has remained a more or less constant companion and

bedfellow ever since.

Now, as I write, I am perhaps freer than ever before from this sordid

preoccupation; not by reason of fortunate investments and a plethoric

bank balance, but because my needs now are singularly few and

inexpensive, and the future--that Damoclean sword of civilised life--no

longer stretches out before me, a long and arid expanse demanding

provision. This preoccupation began for me in the week of my eleventh

birthday, when my father asked me one evening if I thought we could

manage now without Ted's services.

'It's not that I pay him much,' said my father, stroking his chin

between thumb and forefinger, as his manner was when pondering such a

point; 'but the fact is we can by no manner of juggling pretend to be

able to afford even that little. Then, again, you see, the poor chap

must eat. The fish he brings us are a real help, and no wage-earner I

ever met could take pot-luck more cheerfully than Ted. What's more, I

like him, you like him, and he is, I know, a most useful fellow to

have about. But, take it any way one can, he must represent fifty

pounds a year in our rate of expenditure, and-- Well, you see, Nick, we

simply haven't got it to spend.'

It was on the tip of my tongue, I remember, to ask my father why he

did not send to the bank and ask for more money; and by that may be

gauged the crudely unsophisticated stage of my development. But I must

remember, too, that I bit back the question, and, ignorant of all

detail though I was, felt intuitively sure, first, that the whole

subject was a sore and difficult one for my father, and, secondly,

that I must never ask for or expect anything calling for monetary

expenditure. My vague feeling was that the World had somehow wronged

my father by not providing him with more money. I felt instinctively

that It never would give him any more; and that It had given him

whatever he had, only as the result of personal sacrifices which

should never have been demanded of him. I resented keenly what seemed

to me the World's callous and unreasonable discourtesy to such a man

as my father, whom, I thought, It should have delighted to honour.

As illustrating the World's coarse and brutal injustice, I thought,

there was the case of a man like Nelly Fane's father, or, again, the

storekeeper in Werrina. (Mr. Fane would hardly have thanked me for the

conjunction.) Neither, it was clear, possessed a tithe of the brains,

the distinction, the culture, or the charm of my father; yet it was

equally obvious (in different ways) that both were a good deal more

liberally endowed with this world's gear than we were. I felt that the

whole matter ought to be properly explained and made clear to those

powers, whoever they were, who controlled and ordered It. I distinctly

remember the thought taking shape in my mind that Mr. Disraeli ought

to know about it! Meantime, my concern was, as far as might be, to

relieve my father of anxiety, and so minimise as much as possible the

effects of a palpable miscarriage of justice.

The thing has a rather absurd and pompous effect as I set it down on

paper; but I have stated it truly, none the less, however awkwardly.

The fact that I had known no mother, combined with the progressive

weakening of my father's health and peace of mind during the previous

year or so, may probably have influenced my attitude in all such

matters, may have given a partly feminine quality to my affection for

my father. I know it seemed to me unfitting that he should ever take

any part in our domestic work on the _Livorno_, and very natural that

I should attend to all such matters. Also I had felt, ever since the

day in Richmond Park when, to some extent, he gave me his confidence

regarding the severance of his connection with the London newspaper

office, that my father needed 'looking after,' that it was desirable

for him to be taken care of and spared as much as possible; and that,

obviously, I was the person to see to it. Our departure from England

had been rather a pleasure than otherwise for me, because it had

seemed to place my father more completely in my hands. Such an

attitude may or may not have been natural and desirable in so young a

boy; I only know that it was mine at that time.

It follows therefore that I told my father we could perfectly well

manage without Ted, though, as a fact, I viewed the prospect, not with

misgiving so much as with very real regret. I had grown to like Ted

very well in the few months he had spent with us, and to this day I am

gratefully conscious of the practical use and value of many lessons

learned from this simple teacher, who was so notably wanting, by the

Werrina storekeeper's way of it, in 'Systum.' A more uniformly kindly

fellow I do not think I have ever met. The world would probably

pronounce him an idler, and it is certain he would never have

accumulated money; but he was not really idle. On the contrary, he was

full of activity, and of simple, kindly enthusiasms. Rut his chosen

forms of activity rarely led him to the production of what is

marketable, and he very quickly wearied of any set routine.

'Spare me days!' Ted cried, when my father, with some

circumlocutionary hesitancy and great delicacy, conveyed his decision

to our factotum. 'Don't let the bit o' money worry ye, Mr. Freydon.

It's little I do, anyway. Give me an odd shilling or two for me 'baccy

an' that, when I go into Werrina, an' I'll want no wages. What's the

use o' wages to the likes o' me, anyhow?'

I could see that this put my father in something of a quandary. A

certain delicacy made it difficult for him to mention the matter of

Ted's food--the good fellow had a royal appetite--and he did not want

to appear unfriendly to a man who simply was not cognisant of any such

things as social distinctions or obligations. Finally, and with less

than his customary ease, my father did manage to make it plain that

his decision, however much he might regret being forced to it, was

final; and that he could not possibly permit Ted's proposed gratuitous

sacrifice of his time and abilities.

'There's the future to be thought of, you know, Ted,' he added. (For

how many years has that word 'future' stood for anxiety, gloom,

depression, and worry?) 'Such a capable fellow as you are should be

earning good pay, and, if you don't need it now, banking it against

the day when you will want it.' (My father was on firmer ground now,

and a characteristic smile began to lighten his eyes and voice,

besides showing upon his expressive mouth. I am not sure that I ever

heard him laugh outright; but his chuckle was a choice incentive to

merriment, and he had a smile of exceptional sweetness.) 'There'll be

a Mrs. Ted presently, you know, and how should I ever win her

friendship, as I hope to, if she knew I had helped to prevent her lord

and master from getting together the price of a home? No, no, Ted; we

can't let you do that. But if anything I can say or write will help

you to a place worth having, I'm very much at your service; and if you

will come and pay us a visit whenever you feel like sparing a Sunday

or holiday, we shall both take it kindly in you, and Nick here will

bless you for it, won't you, Nick?'

I agreed in all sincerity, and so the matter was decided. But Ted

positively insisted on being allowed to stay one further week with us,

without pay, in order, he said, 'to finish my mate's eddication as a

bushman.' 'My mate,' of course, was myself. In the Old World such

freedom of speech would perhaps indicate disrespect, and would almost

certainly be resented as such. But we had learned something of

Australian ways by this time; and if my father's eyebrows may have

risen ever so slightly at that word 'mate,' I was frankly pleased and

flattered by it. Then, as now, I could appreciate as a compliment the

inclination of such a good fellow to give me so friendly a title; and

yet I fear me no genuine democrat would admit that I had any claim to

be regarded as a disciple of his cult!

His mind deliberately bent on conveying instruction, Ted proved rather

a poor teacher. In that role he was the least thing tiresome, and

given to enlargement upon unessentials, while overlooking the things

that matter. Unconsciously he had taught me much; in his teaching week

he rather fretted me. But, all the same, I was sorry when the end of

it arrived. We had arranged for him to drive with me to the point at

which our track crossed a main road, where we should meet the

storekeeper's cart. There would be stores for me to bring back, and

Ted would finish his journey with the storekeeper's man. Ted insisted

on making me a present of his own special axe, which he treated and

regarded as some men will treat a pet razor. He had taught me to use

and keep it fairly well. I gave him my big horn-handled knife, which

was quite a tool-kit in itself; and my father gave him a hunting-crop

to which he had taken a desperate fancy.

The storekeeper's man witnessed our parting, and that kept me on my

dignity; but when the pair of them were out of sight, I felt I had

lost a friend, and had many cares upon my shoulders. Driving back

alone through the bush with our stores, I made some fine resolutions.

I was now in my twelfth year, and very nearly a man, I told myself. It

would be my business to keep our home in order, to take particularly

good care of my father, and to see that he was as comfortable as I

could make him. Certainly, I was a very serious-minded youngster; and

it did not make me less serious to find when I got back to the

_Livorno_ that my father was lying in his bunk in some pain, and, as I

knew at first glance, very much depressed. He had strained or hurt

himself in some way in cutting firewood.

'You oughtn't to have done it, you know, father,' I remember saying,

very much as a nurse or parent might have said it. 'We've plenty

stacked in the main hatch, and you know the wood's my job.'

He smiled sadly. 'I'm not quite sure that there's any work here that

doesn't seem to be your "job," old fellow,' he said. 'At least, if any

of it's mine, it must be a kind that's sadly neglected.'

'Well, but, father, you have more important things; you have your

writing. The little outside jobs are mine, of course. I've learned it

all from Ted. You really must trust me for that, father.'

'Ah, well, you're a good lad, Nick; and we must see if I cannot set to

seriously in the matter of doing some of this writing you talk of.

It's high time; and it may be easier now we are alone. No, I don't

think I'll get up to supper this evening, Nick. I'm not very well, to

tell the truth, and a quiet night's rest here will be best for me.'

We had a few fowls then in a little bush run, and I presently had a

new-laid egg beaten up for my patient. This he took to oblige me; but

his 'quiet night's rest' did not amount to much, for each time I waked

through the night I knew, either by the light burning beside him, or

by some slight movement he made, that my father was awake.