The Emigrants
“Oh, Nealie, it is a most beautiful
ship, and bigger than Bodstead Church!” cried
Ducky, rushing up to her eldest sister and flinging
herself into the arms held out to her. She and
Sylvia had rushed below to find their berths, while
Nealie was still standing on deck by the side of Mr.
Runciman, who had himself escorted them to London to
see them safely on board the big liner which was to
take them to Sydney.
Events had marched so fast in the
last fortnight that sometimes Nealie had wondered
if she were really dreaming. For the first time
in her life she was realizing what a lot of things
money can do. Mr. Runciman had told her that
Aunt Judith had left a little money to be used for
the benefit of the seven. He had not told her
how much it was, but had merely said it would be enough
to cover the cost of their journey, and so they could
start as soon as they pleased. And because of
the fear there was in her heart lest her father should
send word they were not to come, she had declared
that she was ready to set off as soon as berths could
be secured for them.
Perhaps Mr. Runciman was also afraid
that Dr. Plumstead would cable that they were not
to come, for he certainly spared neither time nor money
to facilitate their going, using so much energy in
the preparations that his servants were about equally
divided in calling him hard names for his eagerness
to rid himself of a heavy burden and in praising his
generosity in making the way so easy for the seven
to go to their father.
Just at the last it had been quite
hard to say goodbye to the old home at Beechleigh
and all the people they had known there. So standing
on the deck of the ocean-going liner Nealie was thankful
that it was all over, and that at last she was free
from the necessity to say any more goodbyes.
Any more save one, that is, for there was still the
farewell to Mr. Runciman to be faced, and she was
dreading this with a very real shrinking as she stood
so quietly by his side, while the others ran up and
down exploring their new quarters and exclaiming in
delight at the bustle and novelty all around them.
“Now mind, Cornelia, if when
you land at Sydney you find that you have not sufficient
money, you must not hesitate to cable to me, and I
shall be most willing to cable you back what you may
require,” said Mr. Runciman impressively, and
because of the kindness in his tone Nealie forgave
him calling her Cornelia.
“Thank you very much, but I
am sure that we ought not to need any more, and I
will be very, very careful not to waste our funds,”
she said, smiling up at him, but her lips quivered
a little in spite of her determination to maintain
a Spartan-like control of her emotions.
“Money melts when you are travelling,
and you are all such babies in the matter of finance.
Let me see what I have in my pocket,” he said,
thrusting his hand in and tugging out a bulky purse
from some mysterious inner depths. “Three,
five, seven, ten. Yes, I can let you have ten
pounds. Put it in your pocket and say nothing
about it. If you do not need it for your journey
you can keep it as a little gift from me and spend
it for your own pleasure.”
“You are so very kind, I cannot
think what we should have done without you in getting
away; you seem to have forgotten nothing, and I am
sure that Father will be most grateful to you,”
she said, looking at him with so much trust and affection
in her eyes that his conscience pricked him dreadfully
for what he knew to be his selfish eagerness to shift
a heavy burden on to the shoulders of someone else.
“It is no great virtue to be
kind to you, child; indeed it would be a hard heart
that would be anything else,” he said in a deeply
moved tone; and because the bell began to ring then,
in warning to people to leave the ship, he took both
her hands in his, and, leaning down, kissed her on
the forehead; then with a nod in the direction of the
others, who at the sound of the bell had gathered
round to bid him a civil goodbye, he disappeared down
the gangway and was lost to view in the crowd.
“The old chappy cut up quite
decent at the last. I expect it was that little
poem of mine which fetched him,” said Rumple,
who was strutting round like a peacock in a new suit
of clothes and feeling himself someone of importance.
“Hush, dear, don’t call
him names, I do not like it,” said Nealie with
gentle dignity, while she struggled with her tears.
“Are you crying over saying
goodbye to Mr. Runciman?” asked Sylvia in a
wondering tone. “I thought we all made up
our minds ages ago that he was really an unmitigated
nuisance?”
“We have had to suspend judgment
a bit of late in his direction,” put in Rupert,
coming to the rescue, for he guessed that Nealie did
not want to talk just then, not even in defence of
Mr. Runciman.
“I think there is more in him
than we know,” said Rumple in a patronizing
tone. “At any rate he had the sense to like
my verses, and that shows that he is not altogether
callous; he even said that it was clever of me to
find such a nice rhyme for Runciman.”
“How does that first line go?”
asked Rupert, still intent on shielding Nealie, who
had walked to the side, and, with tear-blinded eyes,
was watching the gangways being lifted.
Rumple instantly struck an attitude,
screwed his face into what he called an intense expression,
and, waving one arm like a semaphore, declaimed in
loud, clear tones:
“Oh, Runciman, dear
Runciman,
You’ve proved yourself
a gentleman,
Both in pocket and in sense,
For your care to send us hence;
And we join in
three times three,
May your shadow
ne’er less be.”
“Hip, hip, hooray!” yelled
Billykins, waving his cap; then Don and Ducky cheered
lustily also, and the sound of the jubilant shouting
reached the ears of Mr. Runciman as he stood on the
shore and watched the big ship glide slowly from the
land.
Nealie went down to the cabin then,
meaning to have a hearty good cry by way of relieving
her feelings; but Ducky ran down with her to show her
how delightfully cosy their quarters were, and there
was so much to be seen and admired on every hand that,
on second thoughts, Nealie decided to let the crying
stand over until she went to bed, by which time she
was so sleepy that she entirely forgot about it.
By the kindness of Mr. Runciman the
three girls had a four-berth cabin to themselves;
for, realizing how trying it would be for them to have
a stranger thrust in among them, he had paid the extra
so that they might be undisturbed. The four boys
had also a four-berth cabin, which opened a little
farther along the lower deck; so they were all quite
near together, and speedily made themselves at home.
Don and Billykins made up their minds
to be sailors long before they were out of the Thames,
and although they changed their minds when they got
a terrific tossing in the Bay of Biscay, their bearing
was strictly nautical right through the voyage.
Rupert and Sylvia were the only two
who did not suffer from seasickness, but, as Sylvia
remarked, it was not all fun being immune, because
they had such hard work in waiting upon the others.
However, the end of the week found them all upon their
feet again, and very much disposed to enjoy the novelty
of life at sea.
Nealie and Don sang duets, to which
Rupert played accompaniments on the banjo, while Ducky
and Billykins led the applause, and Sylvia posed as
audience, aping the languid, bored look of a fine lady
at a concert with such inimitable mimicry that she
came in for nearly as much applause as the proper
performers from such of the other passengers as gathered
round to hear.
Then Rumple would do his share towards
entertaining the company by declaiming his own poetry,
and he was so funny to look at when he stood on one
foot, with his face screwed into puckers, and his arms
waving wildly above his head, that his performance
used to evoke shouts of laughter.
“I can’t think what makes
the silly goats guffaw at such a rate when I recite
my ’Ode to a Dying Sparrow’,” he
said in a petulant tone to Nealie, one day when his
audience had been more than usually convulsed.
“It must be shocking bad form to double up in
public as they did; a photograph of them would have
served as an up-to-date advertisement of the latest
thing in gramaphones, and when I came to that touching
line, about the poor bird sighing out its last feeble
chirp ere it closed its eyes and died, those two very
fat women simply howled.”
“Dear, they could not help it,
you did look so funny, and I don’t
think that dying birds sigh, at least I never heard
them, and I have seen quite a lot of Mrs. Puffin’s
chickens die,” replied Nealie, who was struggling
with her own laughter at the remembrance of the comic
attitude which Rumple had struck. He was a queer-looking
boy at the best, and then he always went in for the
most extraordinary gestures, so it was not wonderful
that people found food for mirth in watching him.
“I shall not go in for pathetic
poetry with an audience who cannot appreciate fine
shades of feeling,” he said in a disgusted fashion.
“I will just get away by myself and throw a
few thoughts together which may prove suitable to
their intelligence.”
“That would be a good idea,”
said Nealie in a rather choky voice, and then, when
he had gone, she put her head down on her hands, laughing
and laughing, until someone touched her shoulder,
to ask her in kindly pity what she was crying for.
That was really the last straw, and
Nealie gurgled and choked as if she were going to
have a very bad fit of hysterics, which made the sympathizer a
kind-looking elderly man still more concerned
on her account.
“My dear, shall I call the stewardess,
or one of your friends, to help you?” he asked,
with so much anxiety on her account that Nealie was
instantly sobered, and proceeded to explain the situation.
“You see, Rumple, that is my
brother, always does take himself and his poetry so
seriously; but the worst of it is that everyone who
hears him recite his own things fancies it is the
latest idea in comedy, and they laugh accordingly.”
“And I have been watching you
for the last five minutes, until I could no longer
bear to see you, as I thought, in such trouble, and
that was why I spoke to you,” the gentleman
said, scarcely able to make up his mind whether he
was vexed with her for having so innocently deceived
him, or whether he was only relieved to find himself
mistaken.
“You must think us all very
foolish and childish, I am afraid,” Nealie murmured
in apology. “But the children must have
amusement, and we are always interested in what we
can each do. Some of Rumple’s verses are
quite nice, although, of course, others are pure nonsense.”
“Just so, just so; young folks
must have something to amuse them, and it is very
much to the credit of you all that you are so thoroughly
amused by it, and I do not remember that I have ever
heard you quarrel since you came on board,”
the gentleman said in a musing tone.
“We do not quarrel,” rejoined
Nealie with quite crushing dignity, for really the
idea sounded almost insulting in her ears.
“Then you as a family must be
the eighth wonder of the world, I should think, for
I never heard of a family yet who did not have an occasional
row,” he said in an amused tone.
“Oh, but we are different; and
besides we only have each other, and so we cannot
afford to disagree,” she replied earnestly.
“Are you orphans, and going
to Australia alone?” he asked in great surprise.
“Oh no, we are not orphans;
that is, our father is living in New South Wales,
and we are going out to him, but we have not seen him
for seven years. Indeed, Ducky, that is my youngest
sister, may be said not to have seen him at all, as
she was only four weeks old when he went away; the
little boys do not remember him very well either.
But Rupert, Sylvia, and I can remember him perfectly,”
replied Nealie.
“It is certain that he will
not know you if he has not seen you for seven years,”
said the gentleman; and then he asked, with a great
deal of interest in his tone: “and are
you travelling all that distance without a chaperon
of any sort?”
“I have my brothers, and I do
not need anyone else,” she answered, looking
up at him in surprise at his question. “I
have always had to take care of myself, for our great-aunt,
with whom we lived, was very old and feeble; for two
years before she died she did not leave her room,
so it would not have done for me to require taking
care of, seeing that it was not possible for anyone
to spare time to look after me.”
“I think that you must be a
very remarkable young lady, for I thought that all
girls required someone to take care of them, unless
they were colonials that is, and you are not that,”
he said, in the manner of one who seeks information.
“No, we are only going to be,”
she said, with a happy little laugh, for it was fine
to have achieved one’s heart’s desire with
so little delay in the getting, and she was setting
her face towards the new and untried life with radiant
happiness in her heart.
“I am going to Cape Town, so
I shall have to say goodbye to you when your voyage
is only half done, although it would have been a great
pleasure to me to have seen you safely ashore and in
the care of your father. Does he meet you in
Sydney?” asked the gentleman, when he had told
Nealie that his name was Melrose, and that he was at
the bottom as English as she was herself.
“I don’t know; I suppose
he will, for Mr. Runciman would have written to tell
him the name of the ship we were coming by,”
said Nealie; but now there was a dubious note in her
tone, for she was trying to remember whether Mr. Runciman
had said anything about having written to her father.
She had thought of writing herself, but had refrained
from doing it because of the feeling of hurt pride
which was still strong upon her, as it had been ever
since she read the letter which was not meant for
her.
“What will you do if he does not?” asked
Mr. Melrose.
“Oh, we shall find our way out
to Hammerville! That is the name of the place
where he lives. There are seven of us, you see;
it is not as if we were just one or two,” she
answered brightly.
“Hammerville? I wonder
whether that is the Hammerville in the Murrumbidgee
district, where Tom Fletcher went to live?” said
Mr. Melrose in a musing fashion. “They
have a little way of repeating names in these colonial
places which is rather distracting. But Fletcher
told me that the Hammerville to which he went was
nearly three hundred miles from Sydney.”
“I suppose there is a railway?”
queried Nealie, knitting her brows, and wondering
how they were all to be transported for three hundred
miles across an unknown country, in the event of there
being no railway by which they could travel.
“I suppose the rail would go
a point nearer than three hundred miles, unless indeed
the place is quite at the back of beyond, as some of
those Australian towns are,” replied Mr. Melrose.
“But Fletcher told me that he hired a horse
and wagon and drove the whole distance, sleeping in
the wagon at night to save hotel charges.”
“Oh, what a perfectly charming
thing to do!” cried Sylvia, who had come up
behind and was leaning over the back of Nealie’s
chair. “If Father is not waiting to meet
us when we reach Sydney, shall we hire a horse and
a wagon and drive out to Hammerville, Nealie?”
“It would be very jolly,”
said Nealie, with shining eyes. “I have
always longed to go caravanning, but I expect the
difficulty would be to find anyone willing to hire
a horse and wagon to entire strangers like ourselves;
and if Hammerville is so far from Sydney, Father would
hardly be known so far away, even though he is a doctor.”
“Did you say your father is
a doctor?” asked Mr. Melrose, who was very much
interested in this adventurous family, who seemed so
well able to take care of themselves, and were roaming
about the world without even the pretence of a guardian
to look after them.
“Yes; he is Dr. Plumstead.
Have you heard of him?” asked Sylvia, with the
happy belief in her father’s greatness which
was characteristic of them all.
“I used to know a Dr. Plumstead
some years ago, but I do not expect it was the same,”
said Mr. Melrose, looking as if he were going to say
something more, and then suddenly changing his mind.
It was some days later, and they were
nearing Cape Town, which was the halfway house of
their journey, when Mr. Melrose, who had been keeping
his cabin from illness, appeared again on deck, and,
seeking Nealie out, laid an addressed envelope in
her hand.
“It is the privilege of friends
to help each other,” he said quietly. “I
know a man in Sydney who lets horses and wagons on
hire, and I have ventured to give you a letter to
him from myself, so that you may have no difficulty
in hiring a conveyance for the journey to Hammerville
if your father does not meet you.”
“How very kind you are!” exclaimed Nealie.
He waved an impatient hand. “It
is nothing, nothing. I may even be coming to
New South Wales next year, if only my health is better,
and then I shall do myself the pleasure of finding
you out and renewing our acquaintance,” he said.
“That will be very pleasant,”
replied Nealie, her hand closing upon the letter.
“Then we can introduce you to Father, and tell
him how kind you have been to us.”
“We shall see; but I fancy the
indebtedness is on my side,” he answered, and
then he turned abruptly away.
Nealie looked at him a little wistfully.
He was so very friendly and kind up to a certain point;
but when that was reached he was in the habit of retiring
into himself, and she was left out in the cold.
“What is the matter, old girl?”
asked Rupert, who came up at that moment, and noticed
the cloud on Nealie’s face.
“I was only thinking how much
nicer it would be if we could know what was in the
minds of people, and whether they were really friendly
all through, or only pretending,” she answered,
with a sigh.
“Rather a tall order that would
be,” said Rupert, laughing. “Why,
all the rogues would stand betrayed, and honest folk
would get the credit of their good intentions.
The world would be turned upside down in short!”
“I suppose it would,”
replied Nealie, shaking her head, and then she laughed
too.