Chapter 3. A Startler

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER THREE. A STARTLER

Constant dropping will wear a stone, says the old proverb; and if you doubt it, go and look at some step where the rain has dripped from gutter or eave, and see what a nice little hollow is worn. The constant dropping of unsavoury words wears the mind too; and these remarks and banterings about Australia and its convict life in the early days of the century began to have their effect upon Nic Braydon.

He was a good deal younger when his father, an eminent physician in London, awoke to the fact that he had been curing other people at his own expense, that he had worked and studied and been anxious over patients in his dingy house in Finsbury till he was completely broken in health; and he knew enough of his own nature to be aware that, if he kept on as he was, he would in a year or two be a confirmed invalid, if he were still living. In other words, he had worn the steel spring of life till it had grown thin in some places, and rusted and eaten away in others for want of use.

Then he said to himself like a wise man, "I advise others and neglect myself. I must be my own physician now."

He knew perfectly what he ought to do--take to some open-air life in a healthy country, where his avocations would give him plenty of outdoor exercise; and just at that time he met the newly appointed, governor of the penal colony of Australia at dinner. He heard a good deal about the place, went home and read, and inquired more; then, striking while the lion was hot, he sold his practice, house, and furniture, provided all that he could think of as necessaries, communicated with the government, and, after placing his son Dominic, then aged ten, at the Friary with Dr Dunham, he sailed with his wife and two daughters for the far-off land.

Now, Nic's notions about all this had grown a little hazy, while the teasings of his companions grew keener and sharper day by day, and mastered the facts; so that at last he had often found himself wondering whether there was any truth in his schoolfellows' words, and his father had, after all, done something which necessitated his leaving the country.

That seed did not take root; but it swelled, and shot, and gave him a great deal of pain, making him grow morbid, old, and thoughtful beyond his years. He became more sensitive; and when at last the doctor seemed to side against him, and treated him as he thought harshly, Nic began to find out thoroughly that it is not good for a boy to lose the loving help and companionship of father, mother, and sisters, and he grew day by day more gloomy, and ill-used as he believed, till at last, after the sharp reproof from the doctor about his quarrelsome disposition and ill-treatment of his schoolfellow Green, he began to feel it was time he set off to seek his fortune, never once pausing to think that the doctor had only judged by appearances. He had seen Nic attacking Green quite savagely, and not having been present earlier, and, truth to tell, not having sufficiently studied the inner life of his boys, he had looked upon Nic as an ill-conditioned, tyrannical fellow, who deserved the severest reproof.

So Nic thought it was time to seek his fortune.

Who was the miserable ass who first put that wretched idea into boys' heads, and gave them a mental complaint which has embittered many a lad's life, when, after making some foolish plunge, he has gone on slowly finding out that castles in the air, built up by his young imagination, are glorious at a distance, but when approached the colours fade? They are erected with no foundation, no roof; no walls, windows, doors, or furniture--in fact, they are, as Shakespeare says, "the baseless fabric of a vision."

So much by way of briefly moralising on the fact that for, a boy to make up his mind to go and seek his fortune means, in say nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a million, trying to climb upward in search of a castle in the air, or tying a muffler round the eyes before making a leap in the dark.

So Nic wanted good advice, change, and something to drag him out of the belief that he was one of the most ill-treated young personages in the world.

But something came just a fortnight after the fight.

Nic's brow was all in puckers, his cheeks were pushed up in folds by his fists, his elbows rested upon his desk, and he was grinding away at a problem in Euclid--with thoughts of Green, Tomlins, the doctor, and a sore place upon one of his knuckles, which had partially healed up and been knocked again and again, all netted and veined in among right, acute and obtuse angles, sides, bases, perpendiculars, slanting-diculars, producings, joinings of AB and CD, and the rest of it--when one of the doors opened, the servant went up to the desk of the usher in charge, and the hum in the big schoolroom ceased as the usher tapped the desk before him.

"Braydon."

"Yes, sir."

"The doctor wishes to see you in the study."

Nic had started up, and now the wrinkles in his brow grew deeper, and then disappeared as if by magic, for he had caught sight of Green grinning at him with satisfaction in every curve of fat, self-satisfied-looking countenance; and putting on an air of calm indifference he moved toward the door.

As it happened he had to pass just in front of Green's desk, and the lad raised himself a little, put out a leg to cause a stumble, and whispered:

"Birch. Keep the door shut, and don't--"

Green was going to say "howl," but he illustrated his meaning by uttering a cry wonderfully like that sent forth by a cat under similar circumstances.

"What's that?" cried the usher.

"I trod on Green's foot by accident, sir," said Nic.

"Green should not leave his feet lying about all over the floor," said the usher, trying to be facetious, and then looking satisfied, for his joke was received with a roar, which was increased at the sight of Green's ghastly smile as Nic went out of the schoolroom.

"That's birch for him," he muttered, as he passed through the baize door, which shut out the noise of the school from the rest of the house; and the boy drew a deep breath as he crossed the hall toward the study, connected in his mind with scoldings and reproofs of the severest kind. "What have I been doing now?" thought Nic, as he laid hold of the handle after knocking and hearing a deep-toned "Come in."

Then he started and stared, for there was a fine-looking middle-aged lady seated near the doctor's table, who turned to look at him searchingly as he stopped short.

"I beg pardon, sir. You sent for me?"

"Yes, yes, Braydon: come in. This is Lady O'Hara."

"Yes, I'm Lady O'Hara. Look at that, now. A great strapping fellow! And he told Sir John that it was his little boy."

Nic stared, for this was spoken loudly, in a pleasant rich voice, with an intonation that decidedly fitted with the name.

"Yes, yes," said the doctor, who was smiling and very courtly; "but Dr Braydon forgot that his son has been with me over five years, madam, and he has grown bodily, and mentally, I hope."

"To be sure. Shake hands, Dominic. Why, you ought to be Irish, with a name like that."

"Lady O'Hara!" cried Nic excitedly, as he grasped the hand extended to him. "Do you know my father?"

"Oh, don't make jam of my fingers, boy, and I'll tell you," cried the lady, with a pleasant grimace. "Ah, that's better. Yes, of course I know him. He lives next door to us, about a hundred miles away."

The doctor chuckled, and Nic stared.

"Sit down, Braydon, sit down," said the doctor. "Ah! that's better," said the lady, in a fresh, cheery way. "Well, now, look at that, doctor. Here am I, come at his father's wish to take care of him, and he's big enough to take care of me."

"But--I beg your pardon," cried Nic--"you know my mother, madam?"

"To be sure I do, and the two girls; and here's a batch of letters I've brought."

"Oh, tell me, please," cried Nic excitedly, taking the letters with trembling hand,--"my mother and Janet and Hilda, what are they like?"

"Gently, gently," cried the lady; "where will I find breath to answer your questions? Why, the poor boy's like an orphan, Dr Dunham, living all these years away from home."

"Mrs Dunham and I try to make this my pupils' home," said the doctor, with dignity.

"Yes, I know," said the lady, smiling a broad, pleasant smile, and showing her fine white teeth; "but sure, doctor, there's no place like home. It's very pleasant out yonder with Sir John, but I long for wild old Galway, where I was born. Well, Dominic, and do you know what I've come for?"

"You said something about taking care of me, madam," stammered Nic.

"Ah, and don't stammer and blush like a great gyurl, and don't call me madam. I am a very old friend now of your dear mother, and I've come to take you back with me over the salt say--I mean sea, doctor, but I always called it say when I was a gyurl. I was in England a great deal after I was married, but the fine old pronunciation clings to me still, and I'm not ashamed."

"Why should you be, Lady O'Hara?" said the doctor in his most courtly manner, as he rose. "There, you would like to have a quiet chat with Dominic Braydon. I will leave you till lunch is ready."

"Oh, I don't know about lunch," said the lady, hesitating. "Yes, I do. Dominic here will lunch with us, of course?"

"Of course," said the doctor, smiling; and there was a curious look in his eye as Nic glanced at him sharply.

"Sure, then, I'll stay," said the lady. "But wait a minute: I shall be obliged to answer the question when we get back over the say. Did I say say or sea then, Dominic?"

Nic coloured a little.

"Oh, there's no doubt about it," cried the lady. "It was say, doctor. Now then, tell me: has he been a good boy?"

The doctor wrinkled his brow and pursed up his lips.

"Ah! ye needn't tell me. I can see--about half-and-half."

"Well, yes--about that," said the doctor.

"To be sure," said the lady; "and I'm glad of it. What's wrong with him?"

"Oh, I don't like to tell tales out of school," said the doctor jovially. "Not quite so much of a student as I could have wished. His classics are decidedly shaky, and his mathematics--"

"Look here, doctor: can he write a good plain English letter, properly spelt, and so as you can read it without puzzling because he hasn't dotted his i's and crossed his t's?"

"Oh! yes, yes, yes," said the doctor; "we can do that, eh, Braydon? But there's rather a long list of black marks against his name," he continued severely. "For instance, there has been a tendency toward fighting."

"There, that'll do, doctor.--Come and give me a kiss, my dear.--Sure, doctor," she continued, after Nic had obeyed, "he's coming out to a new country, where that part of his education will be of the greatest value to him."

"My dear madam!" cried the doctor, staring.

"Oh, I mean it, sir. It's a new country, full of savages, black and white, and the white are the worst of them, and more shame for us we sent them there, though I don't know what else we could have done. Dominic, my lad, do you know we're going to make a convict of you?"

Nic gave a violent start, and darted a reproachful glance at the visitor.

"There, leave us together a bit, doctor," she said quickly, "and I'll be bound to say when lunch is ready we shall both of us be as hungry as sailors with talking, for I've got to question him and answer all his."

"To be sure, to be sure," said the doctor. "Then, if you will excuse me, Lady O'Hara, I will adjourn to the schoolroom."

"There, Dominic," cried the lady as soon as they were alone, "now we can talk like old friends. But tell me what made you start and colour like a great gyurl when I talked of making a convict of you?"

Nic was silent.

"Won't you tell me?" cried the lady, smiling at him in a winning, frank way, which unlocked the boy's lips at once and made him feel eager to confide in one who took so much interest in him.

"Yes, I'll tell you," he cried: "it's one of the boys--the biggest. He has set it about that my father is--is--is--"

"A convict?"

Nic nodded, and his brow contracted.

"The impudence!"

"And he nicknamed me Convict. And it isn't true, Lady O'Hara? Pray, pray tell me."

"About your father, Dr Braydon? Be ashamed of ye'self, boy, for ever thinking it. Your father's the finest gentleman in New South Wales, and the best friend that Sir John and I ever had in our hard life yonder."

Nic drew a long, deep breath. Something seemed to be swelling up in his throat, and he reached forward to catch hold of and retain the plump white hand, which returned his pressure.

"And so the big fellow called you Convict, did he, because your father's over the water!"

"Yes."

"And I see now: that accounts for the fighting?"

Nic nodded.

"I bore it as long as I could," he said eagerly; "and it began about something else."

"Sure, and why did you wait for that? You should have done it at once. I would."

Nic stared in wonder and admiration at his new friend.

"But tell me: did you give him a great big beating?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Then don't be afraid any more. It would do him good. There, I was thinking I was going to have the care of a tiresome young, monkey of a boy; but I promised your dear mother, and should have taken you back. But, do you know, Dominic, you and I are going to be great friends."

"I hope so," said Nic.

"I'm sure of it. There, I don't want to know any more about you. I only say that you're just the lad for over yonder, and your father will be delighted. Now, then: ask me anything you like."

"May I?"

"To be sure."

"Then what is my mother like now?"

"Look yonder," said the lady, pointing to a great mirror. "Now think of your face made thinner and more delicate, and with soft curls of silky grey hair, beside a very white forehead; and a gentle expression, not a hard look, like yours. That's your mother."

"And my father?" cried Nic eagerly.

"Look again," said the lady, "and fancy your face in thirty years' time, with dark grey hair, all in little rough half-curls, and a great many lines in the brown skin all over the forehead, and about the eyes."

"Yes," said Nic eagerly, as he stared at himself.

"And a look of a man who is strong as a horse; and that's all. No, stop: I forgot his birrd."

"His bird! Does he keep a bird?"

"The young ruffian! he's making sport of me," said the lady. "I said birrd: b-e-a-r-d, birrd. And it's all tinged grey and black. That's your father."

"And the girls?"

"Oh, just two bright sun-browned colleens, like you, only better looking. What next?"

"What sort of a place is it?"

"Place? Oh, there's a wooden house on a slope looking down a bluff at the edge of a great plain, from which you look over the Blue Mountains."

"Yes, they call them blue because they're green, I suppose?" said Nic, with a smile.

"And people say it's only we Irish who make bulls," cried the lady merrily. "No; they call them blue because in the distance they look as clear and blue as the loveliest amethyst. Ah! it's a beautiful place, Dominic, as you'll say."

"And big?"

"Big?"

The lady laughed softly.

"Yes, boy; it's big. There's plenty of land out yonder, and so the government's pretty generous with it. Here at home they count a man's estate by acres: we do it in square miles out there."

"Look here, Dominic," said the lady, after answering scores of questions, during what seemed to Nic the happiest hours he had ever spent in his life, "I've been thinking."

"Yes, madam."

"Say Lady O'Hara, boy," cried the visitor petulantly; and then, with a sad smile full of pathos on her quivering lip, she added softly, "I can't tell ye to call me mother: my son died, Dominic, just when he began to know me; but look here," she cried, brightening, though the lad could see tears in her fine dark eyes, out of which she seemed to peer as from passing clouds. "Sure, I tell ye I've been thinking. Your father said it was time you left school to finish your education out there."

"Education?" faltered Nic.

"Oh yes; but not book learning, boy: hunting, and shooting, and riding, and stock-keeping, and farming, and helping to make Australia a big young England for John Bull's sons and daughters, who want room to move."

"Yes, I see," cried Nic.

"To be sure you do. Well, then, the ship sails in a month from to-day: so what's the good of your stopping here for a month?"

"But I've nowhere else to go," said Nic.

"Oh! yes, you have. You and I have got to be great friends--there, something more than that. I shall just borrow you of your father and mother till I have to give you up at Port Jackson. So, what do you say to my taking you away with me at once?"

"Lady O'Hara!"

"Don't shout, boy: this isn't the bush. Will you come?"

Nic sprang from his chair.

"Look at that, now!" cried Lady O'Hara, showing her teeth. "Hadn't we better have a bit of lunch first?"

"Oh! yes, yes, yes, of course. But, Lady O'Hara, will you take me?"

"Take ye? Why, what an ungrateful young rapparee it is, wanting to leave the home of five years like that!"

"Home!" cried Nic piteously. "Oh, Lady O'Hara, it hasn't been like home. I haven't been happy here."

"Sure, I know, boy, and it was only my fun," said Lady O'Hara, laying her hand upon the lad's head: "as if a boy could be quite happy away from all who love him, and whom, in spite of his thoughtless way; he loves! Then you shall come and live with me at the hotel, and help me do all my shopping and commissions, beside getting your outfit and the things you're to take out for your father. Come, Dominic, is it a bargain?"

"Do--do you really wish it?"

"Why, of course, boy, or I wouldn't ask you. Ah, here's the doctor and his lady. Sure, madam, I'm glad to make your acquaintance," said Lady O'Hara, with grave dignity. "Dominic Braydon and I have been arranging matters, and I should be obliged by your having his boxes seen to and sent off to-morrow."

"To-morrow?" said the doctor.

"Yes," said the visitor, in a quiet, decisive tone; "and as for your pupil--your late pupil--I shall take him away with me directly after lunch."

Both the doctor and his lady began to make excuses about the impossibility of Braydon being ready at so short a notice; and Lady O'Hara turned to the boy.

"Do you hear that, Dominic? You can't be ready in the time. What do you say?"

"I can," replied Nic.

"Of course you can, boy. There, doctor, I've come to take him, so now let's have lunch."

The lunch was eaten, and the doctor and Mrs Dunham having nothing more to say, Nic hastily packed up his things, and then ran to the schoolroom to say good-bye. Ten minutes later he was in Lady O'Hara's carriage, with the cheer given by the boys humming in his brain and a peculiar sensation of sadness making itself felt, though all the time his heart was throbbing with exultation, and the intense desire to go on faster and faster, far away from school, and to make his first plunge into the unknown.

Lady O'Hara did not speak for some time, but took out her little ivory tablets, and sat back in the carriage conning over the memoranda they contained, while her companion read and re-read his letters. Then, shutting them up, she returned the little book to its case and faced round.

"Well," she said, with a merry look, "have you done breaking your heart, Dominic?"

"Yes," he said gravely.--"I can't help feeling sorry to come away, and I'm afraid the boys liked me better than I thought for. It isn't so nice as I fancied it would be."

"No, I suppose not," said his companion; "nothing ever is so nice as we thought it would be. Like to go back for a month till the ship sails?"

"What!" cried Nic.

"I'll tell the man to drive back, if you like."

"You're saying that to tease me, Lady O'Hara."

"True, my boy, I was."

"And you know I wouldn't go back. All I want now is to get on board and start on our long journey."

"Ah, and that's, as I told you, a month hence. There, Dominic, you must mind I don't spoil you before I get you home. Now talk to me and tell me about yourself." _

Read next: Chapter 4. Preparations

Read previous: Chapter 2. After The Fight

Table of content of First in the Field: A Story of New South Wales


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book