IV

A week passed, and brought us to another Sunday. On this morning I

stepped out of bed into the dimness of the dawn light, full of

elation.

'It's only seven weeks now to next visitors' day. In seven weeks I

shall see Ted again. Seven times seven days--why, it's nothing,

really,' I told myself.

By this time I had devised a plan for helping Time on his way. It

hardly commends itself to my mature judgment, but great satisfaction

was derived from it at the time. It consisted merely of telling myself

in so many words that a month comprised eight weeks. Thus, ostensibly,

I had seven weeks to wait. But my secret self knew that the reality

was incredibly better than that. Next Sunday, outwardly, I should have

only six weeks to wait, the following Sunday only five. And then, a

week later, with only a paltry four weeks to wait, my secret self

would be thrilling with the knowledge that actually the day itself had

come, and only an hour or so divided me from Ted. Childish, perhaps,

but it comforted me greatly; and, to some extent, I have indulged the

practice through life. With a mile to walk when tired, I have caught

myself, even quite late in life, comforting myself with the absurd

assurance that another 'couple of miles' would bring me to my

destination! To the naturally sanguine temperament this particular

folly would be impossible, though its antithesis is pretty frequently

indulged in, I fancy.

And so it was while going about my various duties, nursing the

pretence that in seven more weeks I should see my friend again, that I

came face to face with the man himself; then, after no more than one

little week of waiting, and when no visitors at all were due. I

gasped. Ted grinned cordially. Sister Mary was on duty. Ted showed her

a note from Father O'Malley, and she nodded amiably. Thrice blessed

goddess! Her fat, white face took on angelic qualities in my eyes. One

little movement of her hooded head, and I was wafted from purgatory,

not into heaven, but into a place which seemed to me more attractive,

into the freedom of the outside world--Ted's world. Not that I was

permitted to leave the island, but, until the time for evening

milking, I was allowed to walk about the farm and talk at ease with

Ted. By a further miracle of the goddess's complaisance I was

permitted to ignore the Orphanage dinner that day, and intoxicate

myself with Ted upon sandwiches and cakes and ginger-beer. That was a

banquet, if you like!

It seemed that Father O'Malley was quite well disposed toward Ted, and

had even allowed him to make a little contribution (which he could ill

spare) to the Orphanage funds. With what seemed to me transcendent

audacity Ted had actually tried to adopt me, to take me into his

service, as neighbouring farmers took other orphans from St. Peter's.

This had been firmly but quite pleasantly declined; but Ted had been

given permission to come and see me whenever he liked, on Sundays--upon

any Sunday. I could have hugged the man. His achievement seemed

to me little short of miraculous. I figured Ted manipulating threads

by which nations are governed. To be able to bend to one's will august

administrators, people like Father O'Malley! Truly, the world outside

St. Peter's was a wondrous place, and the life of its free citizens a

thing most delectable.

We talked, but how we did talk, all through that sunny, windy Sunday!

(A bright, dry westerly had been blowing for several days.) I gathered

that Ted was in his customary condition of impecuniosity, and that,

much against his inclination, it would be necessary for him to take a

job somewhere before many days had passed; or else--and I saw, with a

pang of desolate regret, that his own feeling favoured the

alternative--to pack his swag and be off 'on the wallaby'; on the

tramp, that is, putting in an occasional day's work, where this might

offer, and sleeping in the bush. He was a born nomad. Even I had

realised this. And he liked no other life so well as that of the

'traveller,' which, in Australia, does not mean either a bagman or a

tourist, but rather one who strolls through life carrying all his

belongings on his back, working but very occasionally, and camping in

a fresh spot every night.

It required no great penetration upon Ted's part to see that I was

weary of St. Peter's. (My first day at the Orphanage had brought me to

that stage.)

'Look here, mate,' he said, late in the afternoon. 'I've got pretty

near thirty bob left, and a real good swag. Why not come with me, an'

we'll swag it outer this into Queensland?'

I drew a quick breath. It was an attractive offer for a boy in my

position. But even then there was more of prudence and foresight in

me, or possibly less of reckless courage and less of the born nomad,

than Ted had.

'But how could I get away?'

'You can swim,' said Ted. 'I'd be waiting for ye at the wharf. We'd be

outer reach by daybreak.'

'And then, Ted, how should we live?' My superior prudence questioned

him. I take it the difference in our upbringing and tradition spoke

here.

'Live! why, how does any one live on the wallaby? It's never hard to

get a day's work, if ye want a few bob. Up in the station country they

never refuse a man rations, anyway; it's in the town the trouble is.

I've never gone short, travelling.'

'I don't think I'd like begging for meals, Ted,' I said musingly. And

in a moment I was wishing with all my heart I could withdraw the

words. It seemed that, for the first time in all our acquaintance, I

had hurt and offended this simple, good-hearted fellow.

'Beggin', is it?' he cried, very visibly ruffled. 'I'd be sorry to ask

ye to, for it's what I've never done in me life, an' never would.

Would ye call a man a beggar for takin' a ration or a bitter 'baccy

from a station store? Why, doesn't every traveller do the same? An',

for that matter, can't a man always put in a day's work, gettin'

firewood or what not, if he's a mind to? Ye needn't fear Ted Reilly'll

ever come to beggin'!'

In my eager anxiety to placate my only friend I almost accepted his

offer. But not quite. Some little inherited difference held me back,

perhaps. I wonder! At all events, the thing was dropped between us for

the time; and, before he left, Ted promised he would tackle a bit of

work a Myall Creek farmer had offered him--to clear a bush paddock of

burrajong fern, which had poisoned some cattle. Thus, he would be able

to come and see me again on the following Sunday. On that we parted;

and, before I was half way through my milking, fear and regret

oppressed me as with a physical nausea; fear that I might have lost my

only friend, regret that I had not accepted his offer, and so won to

freedom and the big world outside St. Peter's.

The night that followed was one of the most unhappy spent by me at St.

Peter's. My prudence appeared to me the merest poltroonery, my remark

about 'begging' the most finicking absurdity, my failure to accept

Ted's offer the most reckless and offensive stupidity. Evidently I was

unworthy of any better lot than I had. I should live and die an

'inmate' and a drudge. I deserved nothing else. In short, I was a very

despicable lad, had probably lost the only friend I should ever have,

and, certainly, I was very miserable.

Monday brought some softening (helped by the fact that Sister Mary was

on duty at breakfast-time, so that I escaped the addition of

punishment to hunger), and, as the week wore slowly by, hope rose in

my breast once more, and with it a return of what I now regard as the

common-sense prescience which made me hesitate to adopt a swagman's

life. I could not honestly say that I had any definite ideas as to

another and more reputable sort of occupation or career. As yet, I had

not. But I did vaguely feel that there would be derogation in becoming

what my father would have called a 'tramp.'

My father's memory, the question of what he would have thought of it,

affected my attitude materially. He had accepted it as axiomatic, I

thought, that his son must be a gentleman. My present lot as an

'inmate' of St. Peter's hardly seemed to fit the axiom, somehow; and

Ted, whatever I might think or say about 'beggin'' or the like, was

all the friend I had or seemed likely to have, and a really good

fellow at that. But withal a certain stubbornly resistant quality in

me asserted that there would be a downward step for me, though not for

Ted, or for any of my fellow orphans, in taking to the road; that the

step might prove irrevocable, and that I ought not to take it. I dare

say there was something of the snob in me. Anyhow, that was how I felt

about it. Also, I remember deriving a certain comically stern sort of

satisfaction from contemplation of the spectacle of myself, alone,

unaided, declining to stoop, even though stooping should bring me

freedom from the Orphanage! Yes, there was a certain egotistical

satisfaction in that thought.

Ted came to see me again on the next Sunday, but our day was far less

cheery than its predecessor had been. We were good friends still, but

there was a subtle constraint between us, as was proved by the fact

that Ted did not again mention the suggestion of my taking to the road

with him. Also, Ted was for the moment a wage-earner, working during

fixed and regular hours for an employer; and I knew he hated that. In

such case he felt as one of the mountain-bred brumbies (wild horses)

of that countryside might be supposed to feel, when caught, branded,

and forced between shafts.

On the following Sunday Ted's downcast constraint was much more

pronounced, and I saw plainly that my Sabbath visitor was on the eve

of a breakaway. The name of the farmer for whom he had been working

was Mannasseh Ford, and, having such a name, the man was always spoken

of in just that way.

'I pretty near bruk my back finishing Mannasseh Ford's paddick last

night,' explained Ted moodily. 'There was three days' fair work left

in it when I got there in the morning. But I meant gettin' shut of it,

an' I did. Mannasseh Ford opened his eyes pretty wide when I called up

for me money las' night, an' he looked over the paddick. Wanted to

take me on regler, he did; pounder week an' all found, he said. I

thanked him kindly, him an' his pounder week! Well, he said he'd make

it twenty-five shillin', an' I thanked him for that.'

Thanks clearly meant refusal with Ted, and I confess he rose higher in

my esteem somehow, for the fact that he could actually refuse what to

me seemed like wealth. I recalled the fact that my father had paid Ted

exactly half this amount, and had found him quite willing to stay with

us for half that again, or even for occasional tobacco money. Perhaps

there was a mercenary vein in me at the time. I think it likely. The

talk of my fellow orphans was largely of wages, and materialism

dominated the atmosphere in which I lived. I know this refusal of

twenty-five shillings a week and 'all found' struck me as tolerably

reckless; splendid, in a way, but somewhat foolhardy, and I hinted as

much to Ted.

'Och, bother him an' his twenty-five shillin'!' said Ted. 'Just

because I cleared his old paddick, he thinks I'm a workin' bullick. He

offered me thirty shillin' after, if ye come to that; an' I told him

he hadn't money enough in the bank to keep me. Neither has he.'

'But, Ted,' I urged, 'why not? It's good money, and you've got to work

somewhere.'

'Aye,' said Ted, his constraint lifting for a moment to admit the

right vagabondish twinkle into his blue eyes. 'Somewhere! An'

sometimes. But not there, mate, an' not all the time, thank ye; not

me. It's all right for Mannasseh Ford; but, spare me days, I'd sooner

be in me grave.'

I pondered this for a time, while a voice within me kept on repeating

with sickening certainty: 'He's going away; he's going away. You've

lost your friend; you've lost your friend.' And then, as one thrusts a

foot into cold water before taking a plunge: 'Well, then, what shall

you do, Ted?' I asked him. But, for the moment, I was not to have the

plunge.

'Oh, if ye come to that,' he said, weakly smiling, 'I've money in

hand, an' to spare. Look at the wealth o' me.' And he drew out for my

edification a little bundle of greasy one-pound notes, which, for me,

certainly had a very substantial look. I knew instinctively that my

friend wanted me to help him out by pursuing the inquiry; but for the

time I shirked it, and we talked of other things. Later in the day I

returned to it, as a moth to a candle, undeterred, partly impelled

thereto, in fact, by the assured foreknowledge that the process would

hurt.

'But what will you do, Ted, now you've given up Mannasseh Ford? Will

you take another job round the Creek here, or----'

I paused, scanning my only friend's face, and seeing my loss of him

writ plainly in his downcast eyes and half-shamed expression. (I am

not sure but what there may have been more of the human boy, the

child, in Ted, than in myself.)

'Oh, well, mate,' he said haltingly, and then stopped altogether. He

was drawing an intricate pattern in the dust with the blade of his

pen-knife, a favourite pastime with bushmen. The pause was pregnant.

At last he looked up with a toss of his head. 'Oh, come on, mate,' he

said impatiently. 'Swim across to-night, an' we'll beat up Queensland

way. I tell ye, travellin' 's fine. Ye've got no boss to say do this

an' that. You goes y'r own way at y'r own gait. Ye'd better come.'

'So you'll go, Ted. I knew you would,' I said, musing in my rather

old-fashioned way. It seems a smallish matter enough now; but I know

that at the time I was conscious of making a momentous sacrifice, of

taking a step of epoch-making significance. Somehow, the very

greatness of the sacrifice made me the more determined about it. I

should lose my only friend, a devastating loss; and the more clearly I

realised how naked this loss would leave me, the more convinced I felt

that my decision was right. There is, of course, a kind of gluttony in

self-denial; one's appetite for sacrifice, and particularly in youth,

may be undeniably avid.

'Well, I did try to stop,' he muttered, almost sullenly for him. And

then, with that toss of his head, and the glimmering of a frank smile:

'But I can't stick it. Humpin' a swag's about all I'm fit for, I

reckon. You're right, too, it's no game for your father's son.' And

here his kindly face lost all trace of anything but friendliness.

'Only, what beats me is what in the world else can ye do, mewed up in

this--this blessed work'us. That's what has me beat.'

The crisis was passed, and with it the last of Ted's shamefaced

constraint. It was admitted between us that he must be off again to

his wandering, and that I must stay behind. And now Ted had no thought

for anything but my welfare. There was no more awkwardness between us,

but only the warmth of this good fellow's real affection, and the

almost agreeable melancholy and self-righteous consciousness of wise

denial which possessed me. Ted fumbled under his coat with a packet of

some food he had brought me: 'Spare me days, the cats might give a lad

a bit o' bread to his breakfast--drat 'em!'--and, finally pressed it

into my hands, with injunctions to be careful in opening it, as he had

put a scrap of writing in with it, for me to remember him by.

And so we parted, with no shadow on our friendship, on the track down

to the punt.

But though my friend was gone, after these three Sunday visits, and I

was alone again, the influence of his coming remained. I should not

revert to the unhoping inertia of my previous state. Some instinct

told me that. And the instinct was right. My curiosity had been too

fully roused. My relationship to the world of people outside St.

Peter's had been definitely re-established by the kindly, rather

childlike, bushman, and would not again be allowed to lapse. The mere

talk of swimming to the wharf, of cutting the painter, of walking

forth into the real world which was not ruled by a Sister-in-charge--all

this had wrought a permanent change in me.

The 'scrap of writin'' fumblingly inserted into the packet of cakes was

no writing of Ted's, but a crumpled, greasy one-pound Bank of New South

Wales note; one of his little store, useless to me at St. Peter's--yes;

but, even as my eyes pricked to the emotion of gratitude, some inner

consciousness told me my friend's gift would yet prove of very real use

to me outside the Orphanage, one day. And, before Ted came, I had been

unable to descry any future outside the Orphanage.

V

I do not remember the exact period that elapsed between Ted's

departure and the visit of the artist, Mr. Rawlence. But it must have

been early winter when Ted was at Myall Creek, because my fifteenth

birthday fell at about that time; and it was spring when Mr. Rawlence

came, for I know the wattle was in bloom then. Very likely it was in

August or September, three or four months after Ted's departure. At

all events my mind was still much occupied by thoughts of the outside

world and of my future.

Some one had told me that a Sydney artist, a Mr. Rawlence, had

permission to land on the island, as he wished to sketch there. But he

had not been much about the house or the yards, and I had not seen

him. And then, one late afternoon, when I had arrived at the

milking-yards a few minutes before the others of the milking gang, I

stood with two pails in my right hand, leaning over the slip-rails at the

very spot upon which I had caught my first glimpse of Ted at St.

Peter's. I was thinking of that Sunday when I had recognised his broad

shoulders, and recalling the thrill that recognition had brought me.

The romantic hazardousness of life had for some considerable time now

made its appeal felt by me. It seemed infinitely curious and

interesting to me that I and my father ever should have known Ted

intimately, as one who shared our curious life on the _Livorno_; Ted

who was born and bred there in Werrina; we who came there across

thousands of miles of ocean from the world's far side, from Putney,

from places whose names Ted had never heard. And then that I should

have walked down to that milking-yard with my pails, and, so to say,

stumbled upon Ted, after his long wanderings in Queensland, where at

this moment he was probably wandering again, hundreds of miles away

and, possibly, thinking of me, of that same milking-yard, of these

identical slip-rails and splintery grey fence. A wonderful and

mysterious business, this life in the great world, I thought; and with

that I threw up my left hand to lift the rails down.

'Oh, hold on! Don't move! Stay as you were a minute!'

I jumped half out of my skin as these words, apparently spoken in my

very ear, reached me; and, wheeling abruptly round, I saw a man

wearing a very large grey felt hat, and holding pencils and a paper

block in his hands, peering at me from a little wooded hummock at the

end of the cowshed. The skin about his eyes was all puckered up, he

held a pencil cross-wise between his white teeth, and was shaking his

head from side to side as though very much put about over something.

'What a pity! It's gone now,' he said, as he strode down the slope

towards me.

He clearly was disappointed about something; but yet I thought that

never since the days when my father was with me had I heard any one

speak more pleasantly, or seen any one smile in kindlier fashion.

Later, I realised that no one I had met since my father's death

possessed anything resembling the sort of manner, address, intonation,

or mental attitude of this Mr. Rawlence. I had no theories then about

social divisions, and the like; but here, I thought, was a man who

would find nobody in the district having anything in common with

himself. By the same token, I thought, had my father been alive this

newcomer would have recognised a possible companion in him. And,

finally, as Mr. Rawlence came to a standstill before me, this absurd

reflection flitted through my mind:

'If he only knew it, there's me! But he will never know--how could

he?'

The absurd vanity and audacity of the thought made me blush like a

bashful schoolgirl. The ridiculous pretentiousness of the thought that

in me, the 'inmate' of St. Peter's, this splendid person could find a

companion, impressed me now so painfully that I felt it must be

plainly visible; that the visitor must see and be scornfully amused by

it. Yet, with really extraordinary cordiality, he was holding out his

right hand in salutation. Here again my awkwardness made me bungle.

What he meant by his gesture I could not think. Some amusing trick,

perhaps. It did not occur to me in that moment of self-abasement that

he wished to shake an 'inmate's' hand.

'Won't you shake?' he asked, with that smile of his--so unlike any

expression one saw on folks' faces at St. Peter's.

'I beg your pardon,' I faltered, and gave him a limp hand, reviling

myself inwardly for conduct which I felt would utterly and for ever

condemn me in this gentleman's eyes. 'Of course,' I told myself,

'he'll be thinking: "What can one expect from these unfortunate

inmates--friendless orphans, living on charity?"' As a fact, I suppose

no man's demeanour could have been less suggestive of any such

uncharitable thought.

'I suspect you thought it like my cheek, yelling at you like that. The

fact is, I had just begun to sketch you. See!'

He showed me his sketch-block, upon which I saw in outline the figure

of a boy carrying pails and leaning over a fence. What chiefly caught

my eye in this was the reproduction of my absurd trousers, one torn

leg reaching midway down the calf, the other in jagged scallops about

my knee. He might have idealised my rags a little, I thought, in my

ignorance. No doubt I had been better pleased if Mr. Rawlence had

endowed me in the sketch with the dress of, say, a smart clerk. And,

apart from the artistic aspect, the man who would sniff at this as

evidence of contemptible snobbishness in me, would take a more lenient

view, perhaps, if he had ever spent a year or two in an orphanage like

St. Peter's.

'It has the makings of quite a good little character study, I fancy.

Later on, when you're free--perhaps, to-morrow--I'll get you to give

me half an hour, if you will, to make a real sketch of it.'

It was in my mind that if only I could make a remark of the right kind

I might immediately differentiate myself in this artist's eyes from

the general run of 'inmates.' This again may have been an unworthy and

snobbish thought, but I know it was mine at the time, based in my mind

upon the unvoiced but profound conviction that I was different in

essence from the other orphans. This was not mere conceit, I think,

because it emanated rather from pride in my father than from any

exalted opinion of myself. But, whatever the rights of it, no suitable

remark came to me. Indeed, beyond an incoherent mumble over the

hand-shaking, I might have been a mute for all the part I had so far

taken in this interview. And just then I caught a glimpse of Sister

Agatha emerging from behind the wood-stack at the end of the vegetable

garden, and that gave me something else to think about.

'Excuse me!' I said, angrily conscious that I was flushing again and

that all my limbs were in my way, and that I was presenting a most

uncouth appearance. 'I must get on with the milking.' And then I made

my plunge. 'Perhaps you would speak to Sister-in-charge. Not this one

here, but Sister-in-charge,' I hurriedly added as Sister Agatha drew

nearer, her thin lips tightly compressed, her gimlet eyes full of

promise of ear-tweakings. 'She would perhaps give me leave to--to do

anything you wanted. I--I am sure she would. Good-bye!'

Having hurriedly fired this last shot, I bolted into the milking-shed.

Just for an instant I had succeeded in meeting Mr. Rawlence's eye. I

had very much wanted to show him something, as, for example, that I

would gladly do anything he liked, even to the extent of allowing him

to trample all over me--if only I had been a free agent. In some way I

had longed to claim kinship with him, in a humble fashion; to say that

I understood him and his kind, despite my ragged trousers and scarred,

dusty bare feet. Now, with a pail between my knees, and my head in a

cow's flank, I was very sure I had utterly failed to convey anything,

except that I was an uncouth creature. My eyes smarted from

mortification; and the grotesque thought crossed my mind that if only

I had had a photograph of my father, and could have shown it to Mr.

Rawlence, the position would have been quite different! I suppose I

must have been a rather fatuous youth. Also, I was obsessed to the

point of mania by the determination not to become a veritable 'inmate'

of St. Peter's, like my fellows there, however long I might be

condemned to live in the place.

During the next three days I was greatly depressed by the fact that I

never caught a glimpse of the artist anywhere. In fact, it was said

that he had gone away from Myall Creek altogether. And then, greatly

to my secret joy, the Sister-in-charge sent for me one morning and

said:

'There is an artist gentleman coming here, Mr. Rawlence. You are to do

whatever he tells you, and carry his things for him while he is here.

Be careful now. I have word from Father O'Malley about this. Be sure

you don't neglect your milking. You can tell the gentleman when you

have to go to that. You can do some wood-chopping after tea, if he

should want you in your chopping time. Run along now, and go over in

the punt with Tim when he goes to meet the gentleman.'

It would seem the good-will of the Great Powers had once more been

invoked in connection with me; and I learned afterwards that Mr.

Rawlence had not left the district, but had been staying in Werrina

for a few days. While there, no doubt, he had met Father O'Malley, and

very casually, I dare say, had mentioned his fancy for sketching me.

At the time these trivial events stirred me deeply. That Father

O'Malley should have been approached seemed to me a fact of high

portent. If only I had had a portrait of my father!

As Destiny ruled it, Mr. Rawlence spent but the one day at St.

Peter's, in place of the enthralling vista of days, each of more

romantic interest than its predecessor, of which I had dreamed. He had

news demanding his return to Sydney; and, as he said, he ought not to

have come out to St. Peter's even for this one day. But he wanted to

complete his sketch. So that, in a sense, he really came to see me

again. This radiant being's swift and important movements in the great

world outside the Orphanage were directly influenced by me. It was a

stirring thought, and went some way toward compensating me for the

shattered vista of many days spent in leisurely attendance upon the

man belonging to my father's order. It was thus I thought of him.

I cannot of course recall every word spoken and every little event of

that momentous day, and it would serve no useful purpose if I could.

It was important for me, less by reason of anything remarkable in

itself, than by virtue of what was going on in my own mind while I

posed for Mr. Rawlence (possibly in more senses than one) and

subsequently carried his paraphernalia for him, showed him his way

about the island, and generally attended upon him. I had hoped that he

would question me about my life before coming to St. Peter's, and he

did. By this time I was at my ease with him, and I think I told my

brief story intelligently. In any case, I interested him; so much I

saw clearly and with satisfaction. I noted, too, that he was impressed

by the name of the London newspaper with which my father had been

connected before his determination to seek peace in the wilds.

'H'm!' 'Ah!' 'Strange!' 'A recluse indeed!' 'And you think he had

never seen this--St. Peter's, that is, when he wrote the letter

arranging for you to come here? Well, to be sure, there was little

choice, of course, little choice enough, and in such a lonely,

isolated place.'

I remember these among his exclamations and comments upon my story.

And then he asked me what ideas I had about my future, and I told him,

none. I also told him of Ted's visit and of his offer to me, and my

refusal of it.

'Yes,' he said, 'that was wise of you, I think; that certainly was

best. In some countries now, in the Old World, one might advise you to

stick to the country. But here-- Well, you know, there must be some

real reason for the rapid growth of the Australian capital cities, and

the comparative stagnation of the countryside. The more cultured

people won't leave the capitals, and that affects country life. Yes,

but why won't they leave the cities? They do in the Old World, for

I've met 'em in the villages and country towns there. But why is it?'

Mr. Rawlence could hardly have expected an answer from me; but part of

his charm was that he made it seem, while he talked and I listened,

that we were jointly discussing the subject of his monologue, and that

he was much interested by my views. He had that air; his smile and his

manner made one feel that.

'Well, you know,' he continued, 'it must be partly the crude material

difficulties which the actual and physical conditions of country life

here present to educated people, and partly the fact that our country

in Australia has got no traditions, no associations, no atmosphere. It

is just a negation, a wilderness; not a rural civilisation, but a mere

gap in civilisation. Pioneering is picturesque enough--in fiction. In

fact, it permits of no leisure and no idealisation; and without those

things----'

Mr. Rawlence paused with outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and

the smile of one who should say--'You understand, of course.' My

modest contribution was in three words, delivered with emphatic

gestures of acquiescence--'That's just it.'

'Exactly,' resumed the artist. 'Without leisure, without time for

anything outside the material things of life, where is your culture?

Where is art? Where is romance? Where, in short, is civilisation? And

so, as I say, I cannot advise you to stick to the country here. No,

one really can't conscientiously advise that, you know.'

A listener might fairly have supposed that I was a young gentleman of

means who had sought advice as to the desirability of investing

capital in rural New South Wales, and taking up, say, the pastoral

life, in preference to a professional career in Sydney. I pinched my

knees exultingly; perhaps to demonstrate to myself the fact that all

this was no dream. It was I, the orphan, who was carrying on this

thrilling conversation with an accomplished man of the world, a

distinguished artist. I felt that Mr. Rawlence must clearly be a

distinguished artist.

'And so what--what would you advise me to do?' I asked when a pause

came. And, immediately, I reproached myself, feeling that I had broken

a delightful spell, and risked abruptly ending the most interesting

conversation in which I ever took part. The words of my question had

so crude a sound. They dragged our talk down to a lower plane, to a

plane merely utilitarian, almost squalid by comparison with the

roseate heights we had been easily skimming. That was how the sound of

my own poor words struck me; but my companion was not so easily

dashed. My crudity could not fret his accomplished _savoir-faire_.

(Mr. Rawlence impressed me as the most finished man of the world I had

ever met, with the single exception of my father; and, indeed, the

Sydney artist did shine brightly beside the sort of people I had lived

among of late.)

'Well,' he said, with smiling thoughtfulness, 'I would advise you,

when--when the time comes, to make your way to Sydney, and to--to work

up a place for yourself there. Of course, there is your native

country--England. Who knows? Some day, perhaps-- But, meantime, I

think Sydney offers better chances than any other place in this

country. Yes, I think so. Have you any special leanings? Is there any

particular work that you are specially keen on?'

Like a flash the thought passed through my mind: 'What a miserable

creature I must be! There's nothing I particularly want to do. If he

finds that out, there's an end to any interest in me, of course. Why

haven't I thought of this before? What can I say?' And in the same

moment, without appreciable pause, I was startled, but agreeably

startled, to hear my own voice saying in quite an intelligent way:

'Well, my father wrote, of course; his work was literary work,

and--newspapers, you know.'

I can answer for it that I had never till that moment given a single

thought to any such notion as a literary career for myself. As well

think of a prime minister's career, I should have thought. But, as I

well remember, my very accent, intonation, and choice of words had all

insensibly changed to fit, as I thought, the taste and habit of my new

friend. And I felt it would be an extravagant folly to talk to him as

I had talked with Ted, or as I talked with fellow orphans at St.

Peter's, of 'pound-er-week-an'-all-found' jobs, or the 'good money'

there was 'in carting,' or the fine careers that offered in connection

with the construction of new railways. I had often been told you could

not beat the job of cooking for a shearers' or a navvies' camp; and

that a wideawake boy could earn 'good money' while learning it, as a

rouseabout assistant. It seemed to me that there would have been

something too absurdly incongruous in attempting to talk of such

things to Mr. Rawlence. Hence, perhaps, my audacious suggestion of the

literary career. There I might secure his interest. And, sure enough,

I did.

'Ah! to be sure, to be sure,' he said, nodding encouragingly. 'Well,

with that in view, Sydney is practically the only place, you know.

Mind you, I don't say it's easy, or that one could hope to make

headway quickly; but gradually, gradually, a fellow could feel his way

there, if anywhere in the colony. It is undoubtedly our centre of art

and literature, and culture generally. At first you might have to do

quite different sort of work; but, while doing it, you know, you could

be always on the lookout, always feeling your way to better things.

Sydney is, at all events, a capital city, you see. There is society in

Sydney, in a metropolitan sense. There is culture. One is continually

meeting interesting people who are doing interesting things. It's not

Paris or London, you know, but----'

He had a trick of using a radiant smile in place of articulation, by

way of finishing a sentence; and I found it more eloquent than any

words, and, to me, more subtly flattering. It said so clearly, and

more tactfully than words: 'But you follow me, I see; I know _you_

understand me.' And I felt with rare delight that I could and did

follow this fascinating man, and understand all his airy allusions to

things as far beyond the purview of my present life and prospect as

the heavens are beyond the earth, or as Mr. Rawlence was above an

'inmate' of St. Peter's. To a twentieth-century English artist, Mr.

Rawlence might have seemed a shade crude, possibly rather pompous and

affected, somewhat jejune and trite, perhaps. But our talk took place

in the 'seventies of last century, in New South Wales. The Board

School was a new invention in England, and in Australia there was

quite a lot of bushranging still to come, and the arrival of

transported convicts had but recently ceased.

I have not attempted to set down anything like the whole of the talk

between the artist and myself; rather, to indicate its quality. Much

of it, I dare say, was trivial, and all of it would appear so in

written form. Its effect upon me was altogether out of proportion to

its real significance, no doubt. It was all new talk to me, but I

admit it is not easy now to understand its profoundly stirring and

inspiring influence. A casual phrase or two, for example, affected my

thoughts for long months afterwards. Mr. Rawlence said:

'There's an accomplishment coming into general use now that might help

you enormously: phonography, shorthand-writing, you know. I am told it

will mean a revolution in ordinary clerical work, and newspaper work

already rests largely on it. The man who can write a hundred words a

minute--I think that's about what they manage with it--will command a

good post in any office, or on any newspaper, I should think. I should

certainly learn shorthand, if I were you. Perhaps you could get them

to introduce it here.'

I thought of Sister Agatha, and pictured myself suggesting to her the

introduction of shorthand into our curriculum in the Orphanage school.

And at the same moment I recalled the occasions, only yesterday, upon

which I had had to 'hold out' my hand to this bitterly enthusiastic

wielder of the cane. My palms had purple weals on them at that moment,

tough though they were from outdoor work. I clenched my hands

involuntarily, and was thankful the artist could not see their palms.

That would have been a horrid humiliation; the very thought of it made

me flush. No, this shorthand would hardly be introduced at St.

Peter's; but I would learn it, I thought, all the same; and in due

course I did, to find (again in due course) that even the acquisition

of this mystery hardly represented quite the infallible key to fame

and fortune that Mr. Rawlence thought it in the 'seventies.

But my attitude toward this sufficiently casual suggestion was typical

of the immensely stirring and impressive influence which all the

artist's talk of that day had upon me. It was undoubtedly most kindly

of him to show all the interest he did in one from whom he could not

by any stretch of the imagination be said to have anything to gain. We

were quite old friends, he said, in his amiable way, by the time

evening approached, and we began to pack up his paraphernalia. My

crowning triumph came when, in leaving, he gave me his card, and wrote

my full name down in his dainty little pocket-book.

'When you do get to Sydney you must come and look me up without fail.

My studio is at the address on the card, and I'm generally to be found

there. Mind, I shall expect a call as soon as you arrive, and we will

talk things over. I'm certain you'll reach Sydney, by and by. Like

London, at home, you know, it's the magnet for all the ambitious here.

Good-bye, and best of good luck!'

'Mr. Charles Frederick Rawlence, Filson's House, Macquarie Street,

Sydney,' was what I read on the card. And then, in very small type in

one corner, 'Studio, 3rd Floor.'

I think it had been the most vividly exciting day in my life up till

then; and, though still an orphan, and officially an 'inmate,' I

walked among the clouds that night; a giant among dwarfs and slaves by

my way of it. Youth--aye, the immemorial magic of it was alive in my

blood on this spring night, if you like; and not all the Sister

Agathas in all the hierarchy of Rome had power to dull the wonder of

it!