one dollar, and discovered that the contusion and everlasting bump formed at the back of my head by a Bo’sun’s belaying-pin was an inherited taint derived from the over-burdened brains of my passionate ancestors!
Well, I recovered my equilibrium, secured good sea-legs, went aloft, crawled along the yards, and helped to reef the sails. Often in the wild nights the sailors cursed and swore as I clung with might and main, my hands and teeth clinging to the rolling rigging up in the foremast top-gallants. My comrades shouted orders to me, their voices blown away on the thundering night gales, but I only heard the instinctive cry of self-preservation within me as the moon and the great beast-like clouds swayed like mighty pendulums across the night skies, swept from skyline to skyline, while the masts shivered to the roll and thunder of the broadside swell as the ship flew along at eighteen knots before the gale. Often I would gaze down deckwards, watching the praying figurehead’s lifted hands heaving skywards when the tropic moonlight made wonderfully brilliant the hills of bubbling foam over the bows as she dived and plunged along. I loved that figurehead, for often as I gazed from aloft on moon-bright nights it seemed to wear a strong resemblance to my dear mother, and with my legs curled round the yards aloft in the lonely sea-nights I would often look down and fancy in my dreams that her shadow ever moved along over the waters below the swaying jib-boom with extended hands, praying for me, as no one ever prayed for me before or since!
I slept amidships with the cook and three other apprentices. I was a favourite with them all, being of a cheerful temperament and a good fiddle player. Often in the off watches I would play old familiar strains while they joined in the rollicking chorus, awaking the silence of the lonely calm tropic nights in moving waters that belted the whole world, when the sails swayed silently along beneath strange stars, filled out at intervals like drums, then flopped, as the lazy tropic breeze once more sighed and fell asleep.
The old Scotch Captain heard me playing one night; he was a religious man and taught me some beautiful sea-hymns, and in due course I played in the cabin aft during Sunday service, when all the crew mustered, and John the cook, who swore and cursed most fearfully all day long in his galley, opened his big-bearded mouth and sung most expressively those old pious hymns, knocking even the Skipper out in melodious reverential pathos!
The dear old Skipper had brought his daughter with him. She was a pretty Scotch girl—a crew of thirty-six men, and one pretty girl and me! Well, I combed my hair, cleaned my teeth, gazed in my little bit of cracked mirror-glass fifty times an hour, for alas! the family failing asserted itself; I had fallen in love! I have never been what you would call really lucky in love, like some happy men; trouble always arose after the first embarrassment had worn off and I felt truly happy, and blessed the universe. And it was so in this my first love affair. One dark night as she stood in shelter by the bulwarks near the saloon door I was admiring her eyes and swearing eternal love, calling all the bright stars to be witnesses to my unchangeable fidelity, and just as I kissed her sweet white ear and, in my madness of love, breathed secretly through her beautiful dishevelled, scented hair, as it waved in the moonlight over her lovely curved shoulders, I received a tremendous clump from the old Skipper! That night I also received stern orders from the Chief Mate never to be seen near the saloon again after dark!
I crept into my bunk heartsick and wretched. The affair got about the ship. I was chaffed a good deal by the whole crew. Real old sea-salts they were. I can see them now as I dream, walking across the decks by moonlight, muffled up to the teeth in oilskins, some with big crooked noses, all with weary sea-beaten faces. Up aloft they go. Again I see their big figures move up the ratlings as they reach the moonlit sails, and climbing, vanish in the sky. All around is sky and water and stars, fenced in by eternal skylines, as the ship travels silently onward, a tiny grey-winged world under blue days, starry and stormy skies, towards a skyline that for ever fades, following sunset after sunset across boundless seas. They were a motley crew those sailors. Some read books, some believed in spirits, and some in beer, and one would tell us over and over again of his experiences in distant lands and his brave deeds and his wonderful self-sacrifices and many other virtues, not one of which he really possessed.
There was one old sailor who on arriving home on his last voyage found that his wife was dead. He would sit on a little empty salt-beef tub and tell me about his courting days and his “old girl who was one of the best,” the tears rolling down his coarse-looking face all the time. He was an extraordinary mixture; in one breath he would almost curse his wife’s memory, and in the next ask me if I thought there was really another world. He could not read or write, and seeing me play the violin and read music as well as books made me almost omnipotent to his sad old eyes. I remember well enough how my heart was touched by his manner and questions as I put on a wise air and convinced him of the soul’s immortality. I even went so far as to tell him that my dead relations had returned to my family as shadows from the other world, and the poor old fellow perched on his tub listened eagerly, believing all I said, and then went off and found his comrades, who sat playing cards by the fo’c’sle door, and laughed the loudest, till they all snored in the fo’c’sle bunks, half stupefied by the smoke and smell of ship’s plug tobacco. I have often seen them by the dingy fo’c’sle oil-lamp fast asleep, seared unshaved faces, all their worldly passions asleep, looking like big children, so innocent, as they snored away, and some of them who had fallen asleep whilst they were chewing tobacco dribbled black juice from the corners of their mouths, their big chests upheaving at each slumbering breath. Outside, just overhead, the night winds wailed and whistled weirdly in the rigging as the jib-boom swayed along, and at regular intervals came the thunder of the diving bows as the ship dipped and heaved and plunged along over the primeval waters.
Five months passed away on that ship. Storms blew from all directions and sometimes dead ahead and then we never slept. Hauling the mainsail up and tacking is more nuisance than flying before a thousand gales. To stand by the top-gallant halyards as comes the wind; to clew the main sky-sails up, singing chanteys, as you cling to the yards with a thundering gale smashing the highways of the water world into a myriad travelling hills as the wild poetry of the sea singing to the ears of the sailor, and I was never so happy as when the green chargers ramped across the world.
I shall never forget my delight as we were towed down Brisbane River, with the everlasting hills all around. I will not weary you with any more details beyond telling you that when we lay alongside the next night I hired a wharf loafer and got my sea-chest secretly ashore and bolted!
River Scene, Queensland
II
Stranded in Brisbane—I look for a Shop—Meet typical House Agent—The Vanity of Youth—I stock my Shop—Alone in the Bush—House Agent calls for Agreement Money and the Rent—I do a Moonlight Flit
As I have previously told you, all I am writing is the truth, so I must tell you that I never saw the Captain’s daughter again, but in my chest of old letters and unaccepted manuscripts I still keep her little notes, dropped near me on the deck of the ship that took me to Australia.
The atmosphere of a new world sparkled in my head as I stood in the old colonial town of Brisbane. It was a sweltering hot night, and as I stood by the river and gazed up the gas-lamp-lit streets, watching the passing Australian girls in many-coloured attires and the colonial “corn-stalks” in big hats slouching about, I felt a tremendous loneliness come over me, a strange homesick longing crept and crept, and from my heart to my eyes a mist arose. I have had many homesick breakdowns in my time, but never one as deep and sincere as I experienced standing there alone in that strange country. I was not yet fifteen years of age, and the thought of my being absolutely dependent on my own exertions was naturally a big oppression to a boy of my inexperience. I was tall for my age and looked two or three years older than I was. A good comrade by my side at that moment would have been untold wealth to me. Under a lamp-post I counted my money. I had just three pounds ten shillings! That night I slept in a little low lodging-house by North Quay. With daylight and a good breakfast my courage returned and I sat up in bed and played several old operatic airs