‘You see, sir, I’d like to git back in about a fortnight or so.
There’s that lot o’ calves in the heifer paddock to be weaned, an’
that last lot o’ foals ’ll want brandin’, an’—’
‘All right, Peter, my boy,’ interrupted the squatter, laughing again.
‘Put money in thy purse, go forth and see the world. Only, when
you’re tired, don’t forget the track back to the old station.’
So, after a day or two, Peter rode 150 miles to the railway terminus,
and, leaving his horse in a paddock, embarked on a very strange
adventure, and one that will be handed down with ever-increasing
embroidery to each generation of Barlows, until, in time, the
narrative overshadows that of Munchausen. It would be tedious to
attempt to depict Peter’s astonishment at the first sight of steam. As
a matter of fact, he was not a bit surprised—or, if he was, he didn’t
show it. It takes more than the first sight of an express train to
upset the marvellous stoicism, or adaptability—which is it?—of the
Native-Born. It takes all that subsequently befel to do so. Peter
arrived in safety at the first large inland town. Here he tarried
awhile and enjoyed himself after the manner of his kind. He stared
into shop windows; went to a race meeting, and there lost five pounds
to a monte man. With a dim notion percolating under his cabbage-tree
that he had been cheated, he made a furious attack on both man and
table. Sequel—five shillings or twenty-four hours. This, now, was
something like life! Would he not soon be able to ruffle it with the
loudest of them on his return?
After this exploit Peter decided to proceed on his travels.
His first emotion of expressed surprise was displayed at sight of the
sea. As the train ran along the embankment, and the stretch of water
studded with ships’ masts caught his eye, he exclaimed,—
‘By Jinks! that’s a thunderin’ big lagoon if yer likes. But what’s
all that dead timber a-stickin’ up in it? Must ha’ been a good-sized
flood hereabout!’
Then his fellow-travellers laughed; and Peter, abashed, withdrew into
himself, but stared steadily over that wondrous expanse of water whose
like so far exceeded his imaginings.
At the port Fate led him—of all people in the world—to put up at a
sailors’ boarding-house. And here, for the first time in his life, he
found himself an oracle.
Many sailors ‘go up the Bush.’ But those who get so far as where Peter
hailed from seldom or never return to the sea.
Therefore, no one criticising, wondrous were the yarns he spun to an
ever-shifting audience of all nations. Wondrous yarns of fierce
blacks, of men perishing of thirst and hunger in the lonely bush, of
wild cattle, of bucking horses, of the far inland life. And, in
return, they told him tales of the stormy seas, and drank heartily at
his expense. The port was busy, wages high, and men scarce. But
Peter’s audience never failed him. The fame of the ‘Jolly Bushman down
at Gallagher’s’ had spread about the shipping, and whole crews used to
drop in of an evening to listen to Peter and drink his beer and rum.
It would have taken a longer purse than Peter’s to stand this kind of
thing.
He had put aside enough money to take him back, and now he resolved to
travel no further. He had heard and seen sufficient; and, above all,
been listened to with deference and attention.
Besides, had he not been on board of ships and there drank rum of
such strength as made his very hair stand on end; and eaten biscuits
and salt junk.
Moreover, once his friends had taken him out and away upon the
‘lagoon,’ away so far, than when he looked for his native land he
beheld it not. Then the water, hitherto smooth, gradually began to
heave and swell into hills as tall as the Wonga Ranges, and,
presently, he fell deadly sick and lay in the salt water in the boat’s
bottom, feeling as if the very soul-bolts were being wrenched out of
him.
Afterwards his friends had apologised, and said something about ‘a
squall.’ But Peter would venture no more.
These things, and many others, would he have to tell. Also the time
was approaching for the weaning of calves and branding of foals. He
had spent nearly all his money. But that did not trouble him. For the
future he must be a bold man who, in the hut, or on the run, could
snub Peter Barlow. One last jovial evening he and his sea-friends
would have together, and then, hey for the far-inland scrubs and
rolling downs.
So far as Peter recollected, it _was_ a jovial evening. He had sung
his famous ballad of ‘The Wild Australian Boy,’ applauded to the echo
as he had never been at home. He had drunk healths innumerable in
divers liquors; had accepted as much strong ‘niggerhead’ in parting
gifts—it was all they possessed—as would have stocked a tobacconist’s
shop, and seen the last guest lurch out into the night.
Then Gallagher had proposed one more drink, ‘for luck!’ After
that—oblivion.
* * * * *
When Peter awoke, his first thought was that he must have fallen
asleep in the saddle, as he had done before now when camping out with
cattle from the back of the run.
But, on this occasion, his throat was hot and dry, and his head full
of ringing bells. Raising himself, he bumped his nose sharply, and
fell back to consider.
It was almost dark, and he could hear a noise of wind and of rushing
waters. Also he felt a rocking motion which assuredly was not that of
a feeding horse.
He had heard the same sounds and felt the same motion recently, but he
could not recollect when. Presently a door slid open, and a flood of
sunshine came in, with a black face in the midst of it.
‘Ahi,’ said a voice, as Peter blinked at its owner. ‘You ’wake now,
eh? Copper hot, I ’spect? Have drink?’ and the speaker handed up a
hook-pot full of water.
Peter drank copiously, and made shift to get out.
‘Where the blazes am I?’ he exclaimed, weak and trembling all over, as
his feet touched the deck.
‘Barque _John F. Harkins_, o’ Boston, State o’ Maine. I’m de doctor.
Guess you’ve been shanghaied. Best come out afore de greaser gets
mad.’
This was Greek to poor Peter. But, stumbling over the door-sill, he
gazed about him with a wildly-amazed look, which made the negro cook
grin more widely than ever.
All around was blue water, blue water from where it touched the
sky-line to where, close to him, it rushed swiftly past, curling,
white-tipped. Above his head acres of snowy canvas bellied in graceful
curves aloft into a blue sky; everywhere a maze of ropes and gear,
crossed and re-crossed like the threads of a spider’s web.
Peter gasped. He was astonished and dismayed too deeply for words; and
at the expression of his face the darkey laughed outright.
The ship giving a sudden lurch, he staggered, slipped over to leeward,
and clutched a belaying pin. Then he heard a bell strike somewhere.
Then men came out of a hole in the deck near by, and one, staring
hard, exclaimed,—
‘Why, damn my rags, if this ain’t the Jolly Bushman come to sea!’
‘What!’ shouted the mate, walking for’ard to meet his watch. ‘Isn’t he
a sailor-man?’
‘Nary sailor-man,’ replied the other. ‘He’s a fellow from the
country—a good sort o’ chap—but as green’s they make ’em as regards o’
salt water.’
‘Damn that Gallagher!’ exclaimed the officer. ‘He brought the coon
aboard, an’ got the bounty, swearin’ he was a shellback all over—blood
Stockholm tar, and every hair on his head a rope yarn! If ever we
fetch Coalport again I’ll skin that Irish thief!’
So also affirmed the captain of the _John F. Harkins_, who was out of
pocket a month’s advance, besides two pounds “head money,” to the
crimp who had netted poor Peter.
Luckily, very luckily for Peter, he had not fallen into the hands of a
set of ‘white-washed Americans,’ half Irish, half anything,
proficients in the art of sea-bullying, and in the use of revolvers
and knuckle-dusters.
The officers and most of the men of the _John F._ were genuine
Down-Easters, natives of Salem, Martha’s Vineyard, and thereabout,
shrewd and kindly people; and, though all naturally indignant at the
trick played upon them, too just to visit their wrath on its
unfortunate object.
Presently Peter was recognised by the steward, who had tasted of his
hospitality ashore, and who now, seeing the poor fellow still
suffering from the effects of the narcotic administered in that last
‘for luck’ drink of scamp Gallagher’s, put him to bed and brought him
restoratives. So, in due course, Peter became his own man again, and
got fine-weather sea-legs upon him, and would have been comparatively
happy but for thoughts of those far-away calves and foals, and the
clumsy fingers of a certain assistant stockman. They taught him how to
sweep decks, coil up ropes, and make sinnet. They also coaxed him
aloft; but he never could get further up the rigging than the
futtock-shrouds. There he stuck helplessly, and over them he never
went. He was young and light and active; but, somehow, he couldn’t
bend his body outward into empty air and trust its weight to a little
bit of rope no thicker than a clothes-line. It didn’t seem natural.
One cannot make a sailor at twenty-five.
The _John F._ was bound for Colombo, thence to Hamburg, and, so far,
everything had been fine sailing. But one day a dead-ahead gale arose
and blew fiercely for three days.
Then it was that Peter began to realise earnestly what he had before
but dimly suspected, viz., that on such an occasion one foot of dry
land is worth ten thousand acres of foaming ocean. Easier by far would
it have been for him to sit the roughest colt that ever bucked than to
stand a minute erect on the barque’s deck.
Of such jumping and rearing, plunging and swerving, Peter had
possessed no conception before, except in the saddle. There, however,
he would have been comparatively safe. Here he was tossed about
apparently at the pleasure of the great creature beneath him—one
minute on to the back of his head, the next in the lee-scuppers. When
he arose, dripping and grasping blindly for support, the rushing past
of big seas, the wild, stern hum in the strained rigging, the roar of
the blast in the bellies of the tugging topsails, and the swirling of
green water round his legs, so bewildered him that he was unable to
distinguish one end of the ship from the other.
Under the circumstances, he did the wisest thing he could, and turned
into his bunk. There he lay, and wondered with all his might why men
should go to sea.
On the fourth day, the gale moderating, they made sail again. During
this operation an unfortunate A.B. fell from the main-yard, and broke
his leg. The captain did his best, but he was, like the rest, quite
unskilled, and the poor fellow lay in agony. Two days after this, when
nearly a calm, the mate roused the skipper out of a nap with,—
‘Here’s one of them big packet boats a-overhaulin’ us, sir.’
‘Well,’ replied the skipper sleepily, ‘what about it? Let her rip. I
don’t want her. Wish we had her wind, that’s all.’
‘Poor Bill’s leg, sir,’ answered the other.
‘Why, of course; I forgot,’ said the skipper. ‘Stop the beggar, by all
manner of means. She’ll have a doctor, an’ ice, an’ all sorts o’
fixin’s on board. Run the gridiron half-mast, Mr Stokes. They packets
don’t care much about losin’ time for sich a trifle as a broken leg,
but thet oughter ease her down.’
And so it did. No sooner was the American flag seen flying half-way up
the signal halliards than the steamer kept away, and came thundering
down upon the barque.
‘What’s the matter?’ shouted someone, as she slowed nearly alongside.
‘A doctor!’ roared the mate. ‘Man very bad with a broken leg!’
‘Send him on board, and look smart,’ was the reply.
So a boat was lowered, and amongst its crew was Peter Barlow, who,
from the first, had been told off to attend the injured man, and who
assisted to carry him up the gangway-ladder of the R.M.S. _Barcelona_.
‘Umph, umph,’ said the surgeon; ‘he’ll have to stay here if he wants
to save his leg.’ Then to Peter, ‘Off you go back, my lad, and get his
kit and what money’s coming to him. It’ll be many a long day before he
sails the sea again.’
But Peter, whose eyes had been roving over the surrounding crowd,
suddenly, to the medico’s astonishment, shouting,—‘The boss, by G—d!’
rushed through the people, and, regardless of appearances, seized a
gentleman’s hand and shook it frantically, exclaiming,—
‘Oh, Mr Forrest, sir, don’t you know me? I’m Peter, sir—Peter Barlow,
from the ole station. I’ve been shanghaied an’ locussed away to sea,
an’ I wants to git back home again!’
Mr Forrest was more astonished than Peter at such a meeting. Matters,
however, were soon arranged.
Peter went on to Colombo in the _Barcelona_, and, in a fortnight,
joining another boat, duly arrived at Wicklow Downs, whence he has
never since stirred.
And, if the reader chance one day to journey thither, he may hear at
first hand this story, embellished with breezy Bush idioms and phrases
that render it infinitely more graphic and stirring a version, but
which, somehow, do not read well in type.
‘EX SARDANAPALUS.’
‘Make it eight bells! Go below, the starboard watch!’
A few minutes later, and eight men sat on eight sea-chests, looking
hungrily across at one another. Between them lay an empty meat-kid.[1]
In a box alongside were some biscuits, black and honeycombed with
weevil-holes. Dinner was over in the _Sardanapalus’_ fo’c’stle, but
still her starboard watch glared hungrily at each other.
[Footnote 1: Small wooden tub.]
‘I’ve lost two good stone since I jined this starvation hooker!’
presently growled one. ‘I ain’t never full, and I kin feel them cussed
worms out o’ the bread a-crawlin’ about in my stummick like so many
snakeses.’
‘Same ’ere, matey,’ chimed in another. ‘A mouthful o’ salt horse an’ a
bite o’ rotten bread for breakfus, ditto for dinner, an’ a soldier’s
supper;[2] with lime-juice an’ winegar chucked in, according to the
Hack,[3] ain’t to say fattenin’.’
[Footnote 2: A smoke and a drink of water.]
[Footnote 3: Merchant Seamen’s Act.]
‘That’s wot’s the matter, when the skipper finds the ship,’ remarked a
third. ‘Yer gets yer whack, an’ ye gits nae mair, as the Scotchies has
it.’
‘We doesn’t even get that itself,’ put in another, who was sitting on
the edge of his bunk. ‘That yaller hound of a steward gives short
weight all round. Lord!’ he continued, ‘only to think that, this time
last year, I was a-smackin’ my chops over mutton uns; an’ full and
plenty of everythin’ in the Hostralian Bush. What a hass I was to
leave it! One’d think there was some sort o’ damned magic in the sea
to be able to draw a feller a thousand miles down from good times,
good tucker, good pay, an’ all night in, with a spree whenever you
felt fit.’
‘Too good, Billy, altogether,’ piped up a grey-headed old chap. ‘An’
that’s what’s the matter. You gets up the Bush, you gets as fat as a
bacon hog, you lives like a gentleman, an’, in the long run, it don’t
agree with your constitooshun. You gets the boil,[4] an’ your liver
turns a sort o’ dandy-grey, russet-colour, and you misses the
gravy-eye[5] trick at the wheel, an’ you misses the jumpin’ out o’ a
wet bunk, all standin’ in wet clothes, and the hissle o’ the gale in
your ears, an’ the woof o’ the cold water over your boot-tops, an’
down the small o’ your back as ye comes a-shiverin’ an’ a-shakin’ on
deck. You’ve bin used to this sort o’ thing all your life, Billy, an’
your liver an’ all the other innard parts gives notice when they’re
a-tired o’ the soft lyin’ an’ the good livin’ up-country, an’ drives
ye back to the old life an’ the old ways agin. That’s where the magic
comes in, my son.’
[Footnote 4: Bile.]
[Footnote 5: Four till six a.m.]
After this there was silence for a while. Each man’s face poked over
his bunk with a short clay pipe in its mouth. Strong, rank fumes of
tobacco filled the place.
‘I say, boys,’ suddenly exclaimed one, ‘what’s this hooker got in
her?’
‘General,’ replied the old man, whose name was Nestor. ‘I heerd the
customs officer at Gravesend say as it was one o’ the walluablest
general cargers as ’ad ever left the docks.’
‘Well then, mates,’ said the other, ‘all I’ve got to remark is as
we’re the biggest an’ softest set o’ fools as ever left the docks, to
go a-starvin’ in this fashion, when t’other side o’ that there
bulkhead’s every sort o’ tucker you can mention.’
* * * * *
‘Make it eight bells! Go below, the starboard watch!’
The same eight men sat on their respective sea-chests.
Between them stood their allowance of beef and biscuit. But it was
untouched. Yet the meal had been in progress an hour.
Alongside of him every man had one or more tins of some kind of
preserved provisions, out of which he was keeping his plate supplied
to an accompaniment of plain and fancy biscuits.
‘Try a little o’ this ’ere fresh herrin’, Jim,’ said one to his
neighbour very politely; ‘I kin recommend it as tasty.’
‘Thank ye, Billy (looking at the label, and passing his own tin), and
’ere’s some sheep’s tongues with tomaty sauce, which p’raps ’ll remind
you on the Bush of Australier.’
‘Ah, if we’d only a drop o’ good stuff now, to wash these ’ere
tiddlewinks down with,’ exclaimed Nestor, ‘I’d feel happy as a
king—an’ as full!’
‘All in good time, dad,’ remarked Billy; ‘this ’ere’s only what the
swells’d call a hinstalment—a triflin’ hinstalment o’ what the
_Sardinapples_ owes us for a whole month’s out-an’-out starvin’. Just
wait awhile till we gets to the bottled ale an’ porter, which’ll
likely be in the lower tiers, an’ then we’ll begin to live like
gentlemen-shellbacks oughter.’
‘I votes as how we should let on to the port watch,’ presently said a
man, as he finished off his repast with a handful of muscatels and
blanched almonds.
‘Ay,’ responded old Nestor. ‘It do seem mean, us livin’ high, an’ them
a-drawin’ their belts tighter every day. Besides,’ added he,
meditatively, ‘company is pleasing; an’ there’ll be all the more for
Pentridge. Not that I thinks it needs come to that if we’re careful.
But (with a doubtful shake of the head) I’m afraid the grog’ll be too
much for some of us when we gits to it.’
A word here as to the _Sardanapalus_.
She was one of the old-fashioned frigate-built ships—somewhat slow,
but comfortable. Carrying, as per owner’s advertisement, ‘a
first-class milch cow and surgeon,’ she was rather a favourite with
that description of passengers who, obeying a doctor’s prescription,
were obliged to take ‘a long sea voyage.’ The passage money was very
high. There were no ‘intermediates,’ no subdivisions. A very good
table was kept, and the ‘dog-basket’ and ‘menavelings’ from it alone
would have supplied the fo’c’stle twice over. But for these leavings
a host of ill-fed, brass-bound apprentices, boys, and petty officers
were ever on the watch—the former knowing as crows, sharp as kites.
Foremast Jack had not the ghost of a chance with them.
Ever since she slipped along the ways the _Sardanapalus_ had borne the
reputation of being a ‘hungry ship.’ More than half-a-dozen times had
she hauled into dock with a collar of clean picked beef bones around
her figure-head. It was currently understood that the skipper ‘found’
the ship. He was an Orkney man, owned a part of her; and probably did
so. She was a regular trader at that time. She is now a custom-house
hulk in an East Indian harbour.
The chief officer was a native of Vermont, U.S., and, with regard to
the crew, a bit of a bully. As he was wont to often inform them, with
the national snuffle intensified,—
‘I’m a big lump of a horse—a high-bred stepper—an’ when I kick bones
fly.’
He came out a loser by this gift, as will be presently seen.
Long before the opening of this yarn the crew had remonstrated with
their superiors about their food. The captain had laughed at them, and
the mate inquired whether they imagined the _Sardanapalus_ had been
specially fitted out as a cook-shop for their pleasure.
Perhaps it was this that now made them linger joyfully over their
stolen meals; and, occasionally, explore with naked lights the
‘general’ when they ought to have been sleeping on empty stomachs in
their watch below.
It being an article of faith with the crew that the chief mate was
responsible for the cargo, they felt a thorough pleasure in its total
destruction. Nestor, old sea-lawyer that he was, had told them that,
although a parcel might be opened and the contents abstracted, yet,
could the smallest portion of the case, cask, or whatever it chanced
to be, be produced, the mate would be held blameless. But, on the
other hand, if not a vestige of anything were to be found to
correspond with the item in the manifest, then would the chief
assuredly be mulcted in the full value of the missing article. With
this devoutly-wished-for end in view, any light package was dragged
for’ard, handed up, and given a free passage. This was criminal and
indefensible. But they hated the Yankee with a very hearty hatred. Had
they not been able to discharge some of it in this manner there would
have surely been a mutiny, and possibly bloodshed, before the
termination of the passage.
In his character of ‘horse’ the mate had one day broken a poor
submissive German sailor’s ribs by repeated kicks from his heavy
sea-boots. Such things create antipathies, even on board ship.
Consignors and consignees alike would have danced with wrath and
anguish could they have witnessed that night’s jettison.
The forecastle was what is known as a ‘lower’ one. A bulkhead
separated the two watches. This partition was composed of very heavy
hardwood planking, on the after side of which was the fore-hatchway,
filled up to within six feet of the deck by a collection of sails,
rope, water-tanks, bundles of hay for the cow, etc. Aft of these, at
about the same height, stretched the cargo. It will thus be noticed
that the _Sardanapalus_ was not a ‘full ship.’
The starboard watch had removed two of the broad massive bulk-head
planks. The port watch two also. At such times as a fresh supply of
provisions was needed, four men from each watch in turn exploited the
cargo. The others kept a look-out aft, and stood by the scuttle to
receive and give things ‘a passage.’ As time passed, the crew, under
the new regimen, began to grow fat and jolly-looking. They worked with
a will, and as a pleasure to themselves. Also, to the utter
astonishment of their superiors, they sang and skylarked in the second
dog watch.
‘And these,’ exclaimed the captain, ‘are the scoundrels who growled
about their food!’
He visited the galley, and sniffed and peered into the fo’c’sle
coppers, and also cross-examined the cook and the steward.
‘Give the beggars more rice,’ said he to the latter official—a sleek,
oily quadroon. ‘Let ’em have “banyan day” three times a week. We’ll
have enough meat left then for the trip home without buying any in
port.’
The crew grinned, but said nothing. The skipper was bothered.
‘Had the fore-hatch off yesterday, didn’t you?’ he asked the mate.
‘Yaas, sir,’ snuffled he.
‘Everythin’ seem all right? No cargo shifted or broached?’
‘Naw,’ replied the mate; ‘seems ’bout the saame as when we left dock;
an’ I oughter know, for I hed a sight o’ trouble fixin’ that
deadweight so’s to trim her forrard. I wonder, naow,’ he continued
with a chuckle as at some joke, ‘how _It’s_ a-gettin’ on down below
thar?’
‘Damn _It_!’ answered the captain shortly, as he turned away. He was
in a bad temper that night. He hated to hear the men jolly; and
instead of lying moodily about, silent and depressed, as of yore, in
the six till eight watch, here were both watches on the t’gallant
fo’c’stle putting all the strength of their united lungs into
‘Marching through Georgia.’
Such a thing had never happened to Captain Flett before, and he took
it as a personal insult. The mate, snubbed, went down on the main-deck
and put a stopper on the singing with a yell of ‘Lee fore-braces
there, and chuck yourselves about a bit!’ The yards didn’t want
trimming in the least. So the men, who knew this, pulled slowly and
silent, each with his mouth full of choice sweetmeats discovered the
night previous.
As yet they had found no strong liquors. But they had found nearly
everything else. ‘Dry goods’ of every description, jewellery, clocks,
firearms, stationery, patent medicines, etc. They had commenced
operations, in the first place, under the main hatch, leaving all the
fore part of the hold untouched. Without a purposeful search, no one
would imagine cargo to have been broached. The throwing things, except
_débris_—empty cases, bottles, baskets, etc.—overboard had been
discontinued. It took up too much time, and the labour was too heavy.
Besides, reckoning by Nestor’s calculation, the mate’s pay-day was
worth already some hundreds of pounds less than nothing.
But one night, coming across a case of toilet soaps, pomades, scented
oils, etc., the temptation proved irresistible, and a stock was laid
in. The love of personal adornment runs strong at all times in Jack’s
heart. On the following Sunday morning the t’gallant fo’c’sle
resembled a barber’s shop in a big way of business. Jack clipped and
shaved and anointed himself until he fairly shone and reeked with the
produce of Rimmel. Never had fore part of ship smelled so sweetly. The
passengers staggered about with their heads well up, sniffing
delightedly.
‘Oh, captain,’ said one—a gushing widow whose age was uncertain, but
mourning fresh—‘we really must be approaching some tropical climes.
These are the lovely “spicy breezes,” you know, “blowing soft o’er
Ceylon’s isle.”’