II

Looking back now upon the period I spent as an 'inmate' of St. Peter's

Orphanage, it seems a queer unreal interlude enough; possessing some

of the qualities of a dream, including brevity and detachment from the

rest of my life. But well I know that in the living there was nothing

in the least dream-like about it; and, so far from being brief, I know

there were times when it seemed that all the rest of my life had been

but a day or so, by comparison with the grey, interminable vista of

the St. Peter's period.

It appears to me now as something rather wonderful that I ever should

have been able to win clear of St. Peter's to anything else; at all

events, to anything so unlike St. Peter's as the most of my life has

been. How was it I did not eventually succeed Tim, the punt-man, or

become the hind of one or other of the small farmers about the

district, as did most of the Orphanage lads? The scope life offered to

the orphans of St. Peter's was something easily to be taken in by the

naked eye from Myall Creek. It embraced only the simplest kind of

labouring occupations, and included no faintest hint of London, or of

the great kaleidoscopic world lying between Australia and England; no

sort of suggestion of the infinitely changeful and various thing that

life has been for me.

It is certain that I cherish no sort of resentment or malice where the

Orphanage and its sisters are concerned. But neither will I pretend to

have the slightest feeling of gratitude or benevolence towards them. I

should not wish to contribute to their funds, though I possessed all

the wealth of the Americas. And I will say that I think those

responsible for the conduct of the place were singularly indifferent,

or blind, to the immense opportunities for productive well-doing which

lay at their feet.

Here were sixty orphans; lads for the most part plastic as clay. The

sisters were the potters. No ruling sovereign possesses a tithe of the

absolute authority that was theirs. They literally held the powers of

life and death. Unquestioned and god-like they moved serenely to and

fro about the island farm, in their floating black draperies,

directing the daily lives of their subjects by means of a nod, a

gesture of the hand, a curt word here or there. They were the only

gods we had. (There was nothing to make us think of them as

goddesses.) And, so blind were they to their opportunities, they

offered us nothing better. By which, I do not mean that our chapel was

neglected. (It was not, though I do not think it meant much more for

any of us than the milking, the wood-chopping, or the window-cleaning.)

But, rather, that these capable, energetic women entirely ignored their

unique opportunities of uplifting us. It was an appalling waste of

god-like powers.

I could not honestly say that I think the sisters ever gave anything

fine, or approximately fine, to one of their young slaves. They taught

us, most efficiently, to work, to do what Americans call 'Chores.' No

word they ever let fall gave a hint of any real conception of what

life might or should mean. I recall nothing in the nature of an

inspiration. Some of us, myself included, possessed considerable

capacity for loving, for devotion. This latent faculty was never drawn

upon, I think, by any of the sisters. We feared them, of course. We

even respected their ability, strength, and authority. We certainly

never loved them.

In fact, I do not think it was ever hinted to one of us that there was

anything beautiful in life. There were wonderful and miraculous things

connected with the Virgin and the Infant Christ. But these were not of

the world we knew, and, in any case, they were matters of which Father

O'Malley possessed the key. They had nothing to do with the farm, with

our work, or with us, outside the chapel. Heaven might be beautiful.

There was another place that very certainly was horrible. Meantime,

there was our own daily life, and that was--chores. That this should

have been so means, in my present opinion, a lamentable waste of young

life and of unique powers. I consider that our young lives were

sterilised rather than developed, and that such sterilisation must

have meant permanent and irrevocable loss for every one of the

orphans, myself included.

But I would be the last to deny the very real capacity and ability of

the sisters in their discharge of the duties laid upon them. I have no

doubt at all about it that they succeeded to admiration in doing what

Father O'Malley and the powers behind him (whoever they may have been)

desired done. I can well believe that the Orphanage justified itself

from a utilitarian standpoint. I believe it paid well as a farm. And I

do not see how any one could have extracted more in charity from the

inhabitants of the district (and, too, from the orphans) than the

sisters did. Oh, I give them all credit for their competence and

efficiency.

Indeed, I find it little less than wonderful to recall the manner in

which the Sister-in-charge and her three assistants maintained the

perfect discipline of that Orphanage, with never an appeal for the

assistance of masculine brute force. The Australian-born boy is not by

any means the most docile or meek of his species; and, occasionally, a

newly arrived orphan would assert himself after the universal urchin

fashion. Such minor outbreaks were never allowed to produce scenes,

however. We had no intimidating executions; no birch-rods in pickle,

or anything of that sort. Sister Agatha and Sister Catharine were

given rather to slappings, pinchings, and the vicious tweaking of

ears. I have seen Sister Agatha kick an orphan's bare toes, or his

bare shin, with the toe of her boot; and at such times she could throw

a formidable amount of venom into two or three words, spoken rather

below than above the ordinary conversational pitch of her voice. But

ceremonial floggings were unknown at St. Peter's. And indeed I can

recall no breaches of discipline which seemed to demand any such

punishment.

The most usual form of punishment was the docking of a meal. We fed at

three long tables, and sat upon forms. Meals were a fairly serious

business, because we were always hungry. A boy who was reported to the

Sister-in-charge, say, for some neglect of his work, would have his

dinner stopped. In that case it would be his unhappy lot to stand with

his hands penitentially crossed upon his chest, behind his place at

table, while the rest of us wolfed our meal. By a refinement which, at

the time, seemed to me very uncalled for, the culprit had to say

grace, before and after the meal, aloud and separately from the rest

of us.

There were occasions upon which we were one and all found wanting.

Eggs had been stolen, work had been badly done; something had happened

for which no one culprit could be singled out, and all were held to

blame. Upon such an occasion we were made to lay the dinner-tables as

usual, and to wait upon the sisters at their own table, and for the

rest of an hour to stand to attention, with hands crossed around the

long tables. Then we cleared the tables and marched out to work, each

nursing the vacuum within him, where dinner should have been, and,

presumably, resolving to amend his wicked ways.

Boys are, of course, curious creatures. I have said that we were

always hungry. I think we were. And yet the staple of our breakfast

(which never varied during the whole of my time there) was never once

eaten by me, though I was repeatedly punished for leaving it. The dish

was 'skilly,' or porridge of a kind, with which (except on the

church's somewhat numerous fast-days) we were given treacle. The

treacle I would lap up greedily, but at the porridge my gorge rose. I

simply could not swallow it. Ordinary porridge I had always rather

liked, but this ropy mess was beyond me; and, hungry though I was, I

counted myself fortunate on those mornings when I was able to go empty

away from the breakfast-table without punishment for leaving this

detestable skilly. If Sister Agatha or Sister Catharine were on duty,

it meant that I would have at least one spoonful forced into my mouth

and held there till cold sweat bedewed my face. In addition there

would be pinchings, slappings, and ear-tweakings--very painful, these

last. And sometimes I would be reported, and docked of that day's

dinner to boot. But Sister Mary would more often than not pass me by

without a glance at my bowl, and for that I was profoundly grateful.

In fact, I could almost have loved that good woman, but that she had a

physical affliction which nauseated me. Her breath caused me to

shudder whenever she approached me. She had a mild, cow-like eye,

however, and I do not think I ever saw her kick a boy.

Yes, when I look back upon that queer chapter of my life, I am bound

to admit that, however much they may have neglected opportunities that

were open to them, as moulders of human clay, those four sisters did

accomplish rather wonderful results in ruling St. Peter's Orphanage,

without any appeal to sheer force of arms. There were young men among

us, yet the sisters' rule was never openly defied. I think the secret

must have had to do chiefly with work and food. We were never idle, we

were always hungry, and we never had any opportunities for relaxation.

I never saw any kind of game played at the Orphanage; and on Sundays

devotions of one kind or another were made to fill all intervals

between the different necessary pieces of work, such as milking,

feeding stock, cleaning, and so forth.

We began the day at five o'clock in the summer, and six in the winter,

and by eight at night all lights were out. We had lessons every day;

and there, oddly enough, in school, the cane was adjudged necessary,

as an engine of discipline, and used rather freely on our hands--hands,

by the way, which were apt at any time to be a good deal

chipped and scratched, and otherwise knocked about by our outdoor

work. So far as I remember our schooling was of the most primitive

sort, and confined to reading aloud, writing from dictation, and

experimenting with the first four rules of arithmetic. History we did

not touch, but we had to memorise the names of certain continents,

capitals, and rivers, I remember.

All this ought to have been the merest child's play for me; it

certainly was a childish form of study. But I did not appear to pick

up the trick of it, and I remember being told pretty frequently to

'Hold out your hand, Nicholas!' I had a clumsy knack of injuring my

finger-tips, and getting splinters into my hands, in the course of

outdoor work. The splinters produced little gatherings, and I dare say

this made penmanship awkward. I know it gave added terrors to the

canings, and, too, I thought it gave added zest to Sister Agatha's use

of that instrument in my case. Unfortunately for me Sister Agatha, and

not the mild-eyed Sister Mary, was the schoolmistress.

It may be, of course, that I lay undue stress upon the painful or

unpleasant features of our life at the Orphanage, because I was

unhappy there, and detested the place. But certainly if I could recall

any brighter aspects of the life there I would set them down. I do not

think there were any brighter aspects for me, at all events. I not

only had no pride in myself here; I took shame in my lot.

On the first Sunday in each month visitors were admitted. Any one at

all could come, and many local folk did come. They made it a kind of

excursion. I was glad that our devotions kept us a good deal out of

the visitors' way, because, especially at first, I had a fear of

recognising among them some one of the handful of people in Australia

whom I might be said to have known--fellow-passengers by the

_Ariadne_. The thought of being recognised as an 'inmate' by Nelly

Fane was dreadful to me; and even more, I fancy, I dreaded the mere

idea of being seen by Fred-without-a-surname. I pictured him grinning

as he said: 'Hallo! you in this place? You an orphan, then?' I think I

should have slain him with my wood-chopping axe.

On these visitors' days we all wore boots and clothes which were never

seen at other times. I hated mine most virulently, because they were

not mine, but had been worn by some other boy before they came to me.

It was never given to me to learn what became of the ample store of

clothing I had on board the _Livorno_. The sisters were exceedingly

thorough in detail. On the mornings of these visitors' Sundays, before

going out to work, we 'dressed' our beds. That is to say we were given

sheets, and made to arrange them neatly upon our beds. Before retiring

at night we had to remove these sheets and refold them with exact

care, under the sister's watchful eyes, so that they might be fresh

and uncreased for next visitors' Sunday. We never saw them at any

other times. Our boots really were rather a trial. Running about

barefoot all day makes the feet swell and spread. It hardens them,

certainly, but it makes the use of boots, and especially of hard,

ill-fitting boots, abominably painful.

And with it all, having said that I detested the place and was unhappy

during all my time there, how is it I cannot leave the matter at that?

For I cannot. I do not feel that I have truly and fully stated the

case. It is not merely that I have made no attempt to follow my life

there in detail. No such exhaustive and exhausting record is needed.

But I do desire to set down here the essential facts of each phase in

my life.

I have referred already to the precociously developed trick I had of

savouring life as a spectator, of observing myself as a figure in an

illustrated romance--probably the hero. Now, as I am certain this

habit was not entirely dropped during my life at St. Peter's, I think

one must argue that I cannot have been entirely and uniformly unhappy

there. Indeed, I am sure I was not, because I can distinctly remember

luxuriating in my sadness. I can remember translating it into unspoken

words, the while my head was cushioned in the flank of a cow at

milking time, describing myself and my forlorn estate as an orphan and

an 'inmate' to myself. And, without doubt, I derived satisfaction from

that. I can recall picturesquely vivid contrasts drawn in my mind

between Master Nicholas Freydon, as the playmate of Nelly Fane on the

_Ariadne_, and the son of the distinguished-looking Mr. Freydon whom

every one admired, and as the 'inmate' of St. Peter's, trudging to and

fro among the other orphans, with corns on the palms of his hands and

bruises and scratches on his bare legs and feet.

And then when visitors were about: 'If they only knew,' 'If they could

have seen,' 'If I were to tell them'--such phrases formed the

beginning of many thoughts in my mind. I can remember endeavouring to

mould my expression upon such occasions to fit the part I consciously

played; to adopt the look I thought proper to the disinherited

aristocrat, the gently-nurtured child now outcast in the world, the

orphan. Yes, I distinctly remember, when a visitor of any parts at all

was in sight, composing my features and attitude to suit the orphan's

part, as distinguished from that of the mere typical 'inmate,' who,

incidentally, was an orphan too. I found secret consolation in the

conception that however much I might be in St. Peter's Orphanage, I

would never be wholly of it--a real 'inmate' I remember, as I thought

not unskilfully, scheming to arouse Sister Mary's interest in me, as I

had aroused the interest of other people in myself on the _Ariadne_

and elsewhere, and only relinquishing my pursuit when baffled, upon

contact, by the poor sister's physical infirmity before-mentioned. I

am bound to say that she made less response to my overtures than that

made by the cows I milked, who really did show some mild, bovine

preference for me.

But there it is. In view of these things I cannot have been wholly

unhappy, for I remained a keenly interested observer of life, and of

my own meanderings on its stage. But I will say that I liked St.

Peter's less than any other place I had known, and that mentally,

morally, emotionally, and spiritually, as well as physically, I was

rather starved there. The life of the place did arrest my development

in all ways, I think, and it may be that I have suffered always, to

some extent, from that period of insufficient nutrition of mind and

body.