Youth--Australia

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_ I

We wore no uniform at St. Peter's Orphanage, but there were plenty of other reminders to keep us conscious that we were inmates of an institution, and what is called a charitable institution at that. At all events I, personally, was reminded of it often enough; but I would not say that the majority of the boys thought much of the point. My upbringing, so far, had not been a good training for institutional life. And then, again, my ignorance of the Roman Catholic religion was complete. I had not been particularly well posted perhaps regarding the church of my fathers--the Church of England; but I had never set foot in a Roman Catholic place of worship, nor set eyes upon an image of the Virgin. Occasionally, my father had gone with me to church in London; but, as a rule, the companion of my devotions had been a servant. And in Australia neither my father nor I had visited any church.

I gathered gradually that my father had once met and chatted with Father O'Malley for a few minutes in Werrina, learning in that time of the reverend father's supervisory connection with St. Peter's Orphanage at Myall Creek, eleven miles down the coast. It is easy now to understand how, pondering sadly over the question of what should become of me when 'anything happened' to him, my father had seized upon the idea of this Orphanage, the only institute of its kind within a hundred miles. He had never seen the place, and knew nothing of it. But what choice had he?

And so I became a duly registered orphan, and an inmate of St. Peter's. The letter I took to Father O'Malley contained, in bank-notes, all the money of which my father died possessed. To this day I do not know what the amount was, save that it was more than one hundred pounds, and, almost certainly, under three hundred pounds. The letter made a gift of this money to the Orphanage, I believe, on the understanding that the Orphanage took me in and cared for me. It also, I understood, authorised Father O'Malley to sell for the benefit of the Orphanage all my father's belongings on board the Livorno, with the exception of the books and papers, which were to be held in trust for me, and handed over to me when I left the institution. Knowing nobody in the district, I do not see that my father could with advantage have taken any other course than the one he chose; and I am very sure that he believed he was doing the best that could be done for me in the circumstances.

Like every other habitation in that countryside, the Orphanage was a wooden structure: hardwood weatherboard walls and galvanised iron roof. But, unlike a good many others, it was well and truly built, with a view to long life. It stood three feet above the ground upon piers of stone, each of which had a mushroom-shaped cap of iron, to check, as far as might be, the onslaught of the white ant, that destructive pest of coastal Australia and enemy of all who live in wooden houses. Also, it was kept well painted, and cared for in every way, as few buildings in that district were. In Australia generally, even in those days, labour was a somewhat costly commodity. At the Orphanage it was the one thing used without stint, for it cost nothing at all.

As I was being driven to the Orphanage in Father O'Malley's sulky, behind his famous trotting mare Jinny, I hazarded upon a note of interrogation the remark that my father would be buried.

'Surely, surely, my boy; I expect he will be buried at Werrina to-morrow.'

This was on the morning after my delivery of the letters in Werrina. I had spent the night in Father O'Malley's house. Somehow, I conveyed the suggestion that I wanted to attend that burying. The priest nodded amiably.

'Aye,' he said; 'we'll see about it, we'll see about it, presently. But just now you're going to a beautiful house at Myall Creek--St. Peter's. And, if ye're a real good lad, ye'll be let stay there, an' get a fine education, an' all--if ye're a good lad. Y'r poor father asked this for ye, like a wise man; and if we can get ut for ye, the sisters will make a man of ye in no time--if ye're a good lad.'

'Yes, sir,' I replied meekly; and, so far as I remember, spake no other word while seated in that swiftly drawn sulky. I learned afterwards that the reverend father was not only a good judge of horse-flesh, but a famous hand at a horse deal, just as he was a notably shrewd man of business, and good at a bargain of any kind. So I fancy was every one connected with the Orphanage.

I did not, as a fact, attend my father's funeral, nor was I ever again as far from Myall Creek as Werrina during the whole of my term at the Orphanage.

There were fifty-nine 'inmates,' as distinguished from other residents there, when my name was entered on the books of St. Peter's Orphanage. So I brought the ranks of the orphans up to sixty. The whole institution was managed by a Sister-in-charge and three other sisters: Sister Agatha, Sister Mary, and Sister Catharine. No doubt the Sister-in-charge had a name, but one never heard it. She was always spoken of as 'Sister-in-charge.' There was no male member of the staff except Tim the boatman; and he was hardly like a man, in the ordinary worldly sense, since he was an old orphan, and had been brought up at St. Peter's. He played an important part in the life of the place, because, in a way, he and his punt formed the bridge connecting us with the rest of the world.

St. Peter's stood on a small island, under three hundred acres in area, at the mouth of the Myall Creek, where that stream opens into the arm of the sea called Burke Water. Our landing-stage was, I suppose, a couple of hundred yards from the Myall Creek wharf--the 'Crick Wharf,' as it was always called; and it was Tim's job to bridge that gulf by means of the punt, which he navigated with an oar passed through a hole in its flat stern. The punt was roomy, but a cumbersome craft.

The orphans ranged in age all the way from about three years on to the twenties. Alf Loddon was twenty-six, I believe; but he, though strong, and a useful hand at the plough, or with an axe, or in the shafts of one of our small carts, was undoubtedly half-witted. We had several big fellows whose chins cried aloud for the application of razors. And none of us was idle. Even little five-year-olds, like Teddy Reeves, gathered and carried kindling wood, and weeded the garden; while boys of my own age were old and experienced farm hands, and had adopted the heavy, lurching stride of the farm labourer.

I suppose there never was a 'charitable' institution conducted more emphatically upon business lines than was St. Peter's Orphanage. The establishment included a dairy farm, a poultry farm, and a market garden. Indeed, at that period, so far as the production of vegetables went, we had no white competitors within fifty or a hundred miles, I think. As in many other parts of Australia, the inhabitants of this countryside regarded any form of market gardening as Chinaman's work, pure and simple. There were any number of settlers then who never tasted vegetables from one year's end to another, though the ground about their houses would have grown every green thing known to culinary art. In the townships, too, nobody would 'be bothered' growing vegetables; but, unlike many of the 'cockatoo' farmers, the town people were ready enough to buy green things; and therein lay our opportunity. We rarely ate vegetables at St. Peter's, but we cultivated them assiduously; and sixpence and eightpence were quite ordinary prices for our cabbages to fetch.

So, too, with dairy products. We 'inmates' saw very little of butter at table, treacle being our great standby. (The sisters had butter, of course.) But St. Peter's butter stamped 'S.P.O.' was famous in the district, and esteemed, as it was priced, highly. Exactly the same might be said (both as regards our share of these commodities and the public appreciation of them) of the eggs and milk produced at St. Peter's. Save in the way of occasional pilferings I never tasted milk at St. Peter's; but between us, the members of the milking gang, of which I was at one time chief, milked twenty-nine cows, morning and evening. I have heard Jim Meagher, the chief poultry boy, boast of a single day's gathering of four hundred and sixty-eight eggs; but eggs, save when stolen, pricked, and sucked raw, never figured in our bill of fare. At first glance this might appear unbusinesslike, but the prices obtainable for these things were good, as they still are and always have been in Australia; and the various items of our dietary--treacle, bread, oatmeal, tea, and corned beef--could of course be bought much more cheaply.

Father O'Malley did most of the purchasing for the Orphanage, and audited its accounts, I believe. Sister Catharine and the Sister-in-charge, between them, did all the collecting throughout the countryside for the Orphanage funds. And I have heard it said they were singularly adept in this work. I have heard a Myall Creek farmer tell how the sisters 'fairly got over' him, though, as he told the story, it seemed to me that in this particular case he had been the victor. They were selling tickets at the time for a 'social' in aid of the Orphanage funds. The farmer flatly refused to purchase, saying he could not attend the function.

'Ah, well, but ye'll buy a ticket, Misther Jones; sure ye will now, f'r the Orphanage.' But Mr. Jones was obdurate. Well, then, he would give a few pounds of tea and sugar? But he was right out of both commodities. Some of his fine eggs, or, maybe, a young pig? Mr. Jones continued in his obduracy. He was a poor man, he said, and could not afford to give.

'May we pick a basket av y'r beautiful oranges thin, Misther Jones?' They might not, for he had sold them on the trees.

'Ah, well, can ye let us have a whip, just a common whip, Misther Jones, for we've come out without one, an' the horse is gettin' old, an' needs persuasion.' Mr. Jones would not give a whip, as he had but the one.

'Ah, thin, just a loan of it, Misther Jones, till this evening?' No, the farmer wanted to use the whip himself.

'Well, well, thin, Misther Jones, I see we'll have to be gettin' along; so I'll wish ye good-morning--if ye'll just let us have a cup o' milk each, for 'tis powerful warm this morning, an' I'm thirsty.' At this the farmer forgot his manners, in his wrath, and said explosively:

'The milk's all settin', an' the water tank's near empty, so I'll wish ye good-morning, anyhow, mum!' And this valiant man moved to the door.

But I am well assured that such a defeat was a rare thing in the sisters' experience. Indeed, Mr. Jones made it his boast that he was the only man in that district--'Prodesdun or Papish'--who ever received a visit from the Orphanage sisters without paying for it. On the other hand, it was very generally admitted that no farm in that countryside was more profitable than ours; and that no one turned out products of higher quality, or obtained better prices. These smaller rural industries--dairying, market gardening, and the like--demand much labour of a more or less unskilled and mechanical sort, but do not provide returns justifying the payment of high wages. In this regard St. Peter's was, of course, ideally situated. It paid no wages, and employed twenty pairs of hands for every one pair employed by the average producer in the district.

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.

III

The custom of St. Peter's Orphanage was to allow farmers and local residents generally to choose an orphan, as they might pick out a heifer or a colt from a stockyard, and take him away for good--or ill. I believe the only stipulation was that the orphan could not in any case be returned to St. Peter's. If the selector found him to be a damaged or incomplete orphan, that was the selector's own affair, and he had to put up with his bargain as best he might. The person who chose an orphan in this way became responsible for the boy's maintenance while boyhood lasted, and I believe it was not customary to send out lads under the age of ten or twelve years. After a time the people who took these lads into their service were, theoretically, supposed to allow them some small wage, in addition to providing them with a home.

It was rather a blow to my self-esteem, I remember, to see my companions being removed from the institution one by one as time ran on, and to note that nobody appeared to want me. I may have been somewhat less sturdy than the average run of 'inmates,' but I think we were all on the spare and lean side. It is possible, however, that in view of my father's legacy to St. Peter's, the authorities felt it incumbent upon them to keep me. The departure of a boy always had an unsettling effect upon me; and when, as happened now and again, an ex-inmate paid us a visit on a Sunday, possibly with members of the family with whom he worked, I was filled with yearning interest in the life of the world outside our island farm and workshop.

But these yearnings of mine were quite vague; mere amorphous emanations of the mind, partaking of the nature of nostalgia, and giving birth to nothing in the shape of plans, nor even of definite desires. Then, suddenly, this vague uneasiness became the dominant factor in my daily life, as the result of one of those apparently haphazard chances upon which human progress and development so often seem to pivot.

In the late afternoon of a visitors' Sunday, as I was making my way down to the milking-yard with a pail on either arm, my eyes fell upon the broad shoulders of a man who was leaning contemplatively over the slip-rails of the yard. The sight of those shoulders sent a thrill right through me; it touched the marrow of my spine. I, who had thought myself the most forlorn and friendless of orphans; I had a friend, and he was here before me. There was no need to see his face. I knew those shoulders.

'Ted!' I cried. And positively I had to exercise deliberate self-restraint to prevent myself from rushing at our Livorno friend and factotum, and flinging my arms about him, as in infantile days I had been wont to make embracing leaps at Amelia from the kitchen table of the house off Russell Square.

'God spare me days! Is it you, then, chum?' exclaimed Ted, as he swung round on his high heels. (In those days the Sunday rig of men like Ted Reilly comprised much-polished, pointed-toe, elastic-side boots with very high heels, and voluminously 'bell-bottomed' trousers.) I rattled questions at him, as peas from a pea-shooter; and when I had laid aside my buckets he pumped away at my right arm, as though providing water to put a fire out.

It seemed he had only that week returned to the district, after a long spell of wandering and desultory working in southern Queensland. No, he had not had time yet to go out to the Livorno, and he had not heard of my father's death--'Rest his soul for as good an' kindly a gentleman as ever walked!' And so--'Spare me days!'--I was an orphan at St. Peter's! The queer thing it was he had taken it into his head to be wandering that way, an' all, having nothing else to do to pass the time, like! How I blessed the casual ways of the man, the marked absence of 'Systum' in his character, that led him to make such excursions! He squatted beside me on his heels, whilst I, fearing admonition from above, got to work with my cows, and saw the rest of the milking gang started.

Passionate disappointment swept across my mind when I learned that he had been several hours on the island before I saw him, and that it wanted now but ten minutes to five o'clock, the hour at which the punt made its last trip with visitors. And in almost the same moment joy shook and thrilled me as I realised the romantic hazard of our meeting at all, which was accentuated really by the narrowness of our margin of time. A matter of minutes and he would be gone. A matter of minutes and I should never have seen him at all. But that could not have been. I refused to contemplate a life at St. Peter's in which this inestimable amelioration (now nearly five minutes old) played no part. The hopeless emptiness of life at the Orphanage without a meeting with Ted was something altogether too harrowing to be dwelt upon. It could not have been borne.

'You'll be here first thing next visitors' Sunday, Ted--first thing?' I charged him, as he rose in response to the puntman's bell. 'I couldn't stand it if you didn't come, Ted.'

'Oh, I'll come, right enough, chum. But that's a month. Why, spare me days, surely I---'

'You'll have to go, Ted. That's his last ring. Sister Agatha's looking. Don't seem to take much notice o' me, Ted, or she might-- Oh, good-bye, Ted! Don't seem to be noticing. Good-bye, good-bye!'

My head was back in the cow's flank now, and very hot tears were running down my cheeks and into the milk-pail. My lip was cut under my front teeth, and--'Oh, Ted, first thing in the morning--don't forget the Sunday,' I implored, as he passed away, drawing one hand caressingly across my shoulder as he went.

In a hazy, golden dream I finished my milking, staggering and swaying up to the dairy under my two brimming pails, and turned to the remaining tasks of the evening, longing for bed-time and liberty to review my amazing good fortune in privacy; thirsting for it, as a tippler for his liquor. I dared not think about it at all before bed-time. In some recondite way it seemed that would have been indecent, an exposure of my new treasure to the vulgar gaze. Now, it was securely locked away inside me, absolutely hidden. And there it must remain until, lights being doused, I could draw it out under the friendly cover of my coarse bed-clothes (after visiting-day sheets had been removed) and voluptuously abandon myself to it. Meantime, I moved among my fellows as one having possession of a talisman which raised him far above the cares and preoccupations of the common herd. I even looked forward with pleasure to the next day, to Monday! I should have no breakfast. Sister Agatha would be on duty. I should be pestered, and probably robbed of dinner, too. But what of that? The coming of that cheerless and hungry Monday would carry me forward one whole day toward the next visitors' Sunday, and--Ted.

I had not begun yet to consider in any way the question of how seeing Ted could help me. Enough for me that I had seen him; that I had a friend; and that I should see him again. Indeed, even if I had had no hope of seeing him again, I still should have been thrilled through and through by the delicious kindliness, the romantic interest of the thought that, out there in the world beyond Myall Creek, I had a friend; a free and powerful man, moving about independently among the citizens of the great world, in which Sister Agatha was a mere nobody; in which all sorts of delightful things continually happened, in which task work was no more than one incident in a daily round compact of other interests, hazards, meetings, and--and of freedom.

It was extraordinary the manner in which ten minutes in the society of a man, who would have been adjudged by many most uninspiring, had transformed me. It seemed the mere sight of this simple bushman, in his 'bell-bottomed' Sunday trousers, had lifted me up from a slough of hopeless inertia to a plane upon which life was a master musician, and all my veins the strings from which he drew his magic melodies.

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. _

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