From Squire to Squatter Part 17

"Genteel! Why, lad, if you're going to go in for genteelity, you'd best have stayed at home."

"Well, but I have an excellent education. I can write like copper-plate. I am a fair hand at figures, and well up in Latin and Greek; and--"

"Ha! ha! ha!" Captain Vesey laughed aloud. "Latin and Greek, eh? You must keep that to yourself, boy."

"And," continued Archie boldly, "I have a whole lot of capital introductions. I'm sure to get into a good office in Sydney; and in a few years--"

Archie stopped short, because by the light that streamed from the skylight he could see that Captain Vesey was looking at him half-wonderingly, but evidently amused.

"Go on," said the captain.

"Not a word more," said Archie doggedly.

"Finish your sentence, lad."

"I shan't. There!"

"Well, I'll do it for you. You'll get into a delightful office, with mahogany writing-desks and stained gla.s.s windows, Turkey carpet and an easy-chair. Your employer will take you out in his buggy every Sunday to dine with him; and after a few years, as you say, he'll make you a co-partner; and you'll end by marrying his daughter, and live happy ever after."

"You're laughing at me, sir. I'll go down below."

"Yes, I'm laughing at you, because you're only a greenhorn; and it is as well that I should squeeze a little of the lime-juice out of you as anyone else. No, don't go below. Mind, I was your father's friend."

"Yes," pouted poor Archie; "but you don't appear to be mine. You are throwing cold water over my hopes; you are smashing my idols."

"A very pretty speech, Archie Broadbent. But mind you this--a hut on solid ground is better far than a castle in the air. And it is better that I should storm and capsize your cloud-castle, than that an absolute stranger did so."

"Well, I suppose you are right. Forgive me for being cross."

"Spoken like his father's son," said Captain Vesey, grasping and shaking the hand that Archie extended to him. "Now we know each other. Ding!

ding! ding! there goes the dinner-bell. Sit next to me."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"KEEP ON YOUR CAP. I WAS ONCE A POOR MAN MYSELF."

The voyage out was a long, even tedious one; but as it has but little bearing on the story I forbear to describe it at length.

The ship had a pa.s.senger for Madeira, parcels for Ascension and Saint Helena, and she lay in at the Cape for a whole week.

Here Captain Vesey left the vessel, bidding Archie a kind farewell, after dining with him at the Fountain, and roaming with him all over the charming Botanical Gardens.

"I've an idea we'll meet again," he said as he bade him adieu. "If G.o.d spares me, I'll be sure to visit Sydney in a year or two, and I hope to find you doing well. You'll know if my little yacht, the _Barracouta_, comes in, and I know you'll come off and see me. I hope to find you with as good a coat on your back as you have now."

Then the _Dugong_ sailed away again; but the time now seemed longer to Archie than ever, for in Captain Vesey he really had lost a good friend--a friend who was all the more valuable because he spoke the plain, unvarnished truth; and if in doing so one or two of the young man's cherished idols were brought tumbling down to the ground, it was all the better for the young man. It showed those idols had feet of clay, else a little cold water thrown over them would hardly have had such an effect. I am sorry to say, however, that no sooner had the captain left the ship, than Archie set about carefully collecting the pieces of those said idols and patching them up again.

"After all," he thought to himself, "this Captain Vesey, jolly fellow as he is, never had to struggle with fortune as I shall do; and I don't think he has the same pluck in him that my father has, and that people say I have. We'll see, anyhow. Other fellows have been fortunate in a few years, why shouldn't I? 'In a few years?' Yes, these are the very words Captain Vesey laughed at me for. 'In a few years?' To be sure.

And why not? What _is_ the good of a fortune to a fellow after he gets old, and all worn down with gout and rheumatism? 'Cheer, boys, cheer;'

I'm going in to win."

How slow the ship sailed now, apparently; and when it did blow it usually blew the wrong way, and she would have to stand off and on, or go tack and half-tack against it, like a man with one long leg and one short. But she was becalmed more than once, and this did seem dreadful.

It put Archie in mind of a man going to sleep in the middle of his work, which is not at all the correct thing to do.

Well, there is nothing like a sailing ship after all for teaching one the virtue of patience; and at last Archie settled down to his sea life.

He was becoming quite a sailor--as hard as the wheel-spokes, as brown as the binnacle. He was quite a favourite with the captain and officers, and with all hands fore and aft. Indeed he was very often in the forecastle or galley of an evening listening to the men's yarns or songs, and sometimes singing a verse or two himself.

He was just beginning to think the _Dugong_ was Vanderdecken's ship, and that she never would make port at all, when one day at dinner he noticed that the captain was unusually cheerful.

"In four or five days more, please G.o.d," said he, "we'll be safe in Sydney."

Archie almost wished he had not known this, for these four or five days were the longest of any he had yet pa.s.sed. He had commenced to worship his patched-up idols again, and felt happier now, and more full of hope and certainty of fortune than he had done during the whole voyage.

Sometimes they sighted land. Once or twice birds flew on board--such bright, pretty birds too they looked. And birds also went wheeling and whirring about the ship--gulls, the like of which he had never seen before. They were more elegant in shape and purer in colour than ours, and their voices were clear and ringing.

d.i.c.k Whittington construed words out of the sound of the chiming bells.

Therefore it is not at all wonderful that Archie was pleased to believe that some of these beautiful birds were screaming him a welcome to the land of gold.

Just at or near the end of the voyage half a gale of wind blew the ship considerably out of her course. Then the breeze went round to fair again, the sea went down, and the birds came back; and one afternoon a shout was heard from the foretop that made Archie's heart jump for very joy.

"Land ho!"

That same evening, as the sun was setting behind the Blue Mountains, leaving a gorgeous splendour of cloud-scenery that may be equalled, but is never surpa.s.sed in any country, the _Dugong_ sailed slowly into Sydney harbour, and cast anchor.

At last! Yes, at last. Here were the golden gates of the El Dorado that were to lead the ambitious boy to fortune, and all the pleasures fortune is capable of bestowing.

Archie had fancied that Sydney would prove to be a very beautiful place; but not in his wildest imaginings had he conjured up a scene of such surpa.s.sing loveliness as that which now lay before him, and around him as well.

On the town itself his eye naturally first rested. There it lay, miles upon miles of houses, towers, and steeples, spread out along the coast, and rising inland. The mountains and hills beyond, their rugged grandeur softened and subdued in the purple haze of the day's dying glory; the sky above, with its shades of orange, saffron, crimson, opal, and grey; and the rocks, to right and left in the nearer distance, with their dreamy clouds of foliage, from which peeped many a lordly mansion, many a fairy-like palace. He hardly noticed the forests of masts; he was done with ships, done with masts, for a time at least; but his inmost heart responded to the distant hum of city life, that came gently stealing over the waters, mingling with the chime of evening bells, and the music of the happy sea-gulls.

Would he, could he, get on sh.o.r.e to-night? "No," the first officer replied, "not before another day."

So he stood on deck, or walked about, never thinking of food--what is food or drink to a youth who lives on hope?--till the gloaming shades gave place to night, till the southern stars shone over the hills and harbour, and strings upon strings of lamps and lights were hung everywhere across the city above and below.

Now the fairy scene is changed. Archie is on sh.o.r.e. It is the forenoon of another day, and the sun is warm though not uncomfortably hot. There is so much that is bracing and invigorating in the very air, that he longs to be doing something at once. Longs to commence laying the foundation-stone of that temple of fortune which--let Captain Vesey say what he likes--he, Archie Broadbent, is bent upon building.

He has dressed himself in his very English best. His clothes are new and creaseless, his gloves are spotless, his black silk hat immaculate, the cambric handkerchief that peeps coyly from his breast pocket is whiter than the snow, his boots fit like gloves, and shine as softly black as his hat itself, and his cane even must be the envy of every young man he meets.

Strange to say, however, no one appears to take a very great deal of notice of him, though, as he glances towards the shop windows, he can see as if in a mirror that one or two pa.s.sengers have looked back and smiled. But it couldn't surely have been at him? Impossible!

The people, however, are apparently all very active and very busy, though cool, with a self-possession that he cannot help envying, and which he tries to imitate without any marked degree of success.

There is an air of luxury and refinement about many of the buildings that quite impresses the young man; but he cannot help noticing that there is also a sort of business air about the streets which he hardly expected to find, and which reminds him forcibly of Glasgow and Manchester. He almost wishes it had been otherwise.

He marches on boldly enough.

Archie feels as if on a prospecting tour--prospecting for gold. Of course he is going to make his fortune, but how is he going to begin?

That is the awkward part of the business. If he could once get in the thin end of the wedge he would quickly drive it home.