Missing Friends Part 4

Half of this I understood and half I guessed. He did not know, however, that his own mode of salutation would in Copenhagen have been thought just about as bearish as what he was now correcting me for. I rose to bid him good-bye, because I was determined to go home as the right course now to pursue; but as I took off my hat to him again my crestfallen appearance seemed to amuse him, because he began to laugh, and when I had reached the corner of the house he came after me, insisting that I should come back. I declined, until I could see that by remaining stubborn I should only give still greater offence, and so we returned and went into the drawing-room to have a gla.s.s of wine. Mrs.

---- came now into the room, and with well-bred kindness tried to put me at my ease again. But although they now seemed to have forgiven me, and were preparing to start for their walk, I felt that I could not go with them, and after asking A. in my presence to offer my apology to the lady herself, I took up my hat, and, bowing profusely to all, went away.

The reader may guess that I was not very proud of myself when I came home and flung myself on my bed. My career in Queensland had indeed opened in a very unpropitious manner. I had not been a week in the country yet, and it appeared I had made myself look more foolish wherever I had been than I had thought it possible to do. First the bottles--what disgrace was not that, fighting with the blacks in the street scarcely an hour after coming ash.o.r.e; and poor Thorkill, who had invested his last sixpence, on my recommendation, in buying empty bottles! Then at the depot the evening after, when I somehow again had been the laughing-stock of them all--a regular "Handy Andy"; and now to-day, when I had started out with the best intentions, and had only succeeded in making a never-to-be-forgotten picture of myself--and that after having borrowed a "belltopper" to look grand in! Now I had to return that piece of furniture to the owner, and when he asked me how I had enjoyed the company of my grand acquaintances, probably I should have to tell a falsehood about it in order to hide my shame. One consolation was that I had yet the gloves--they were my own to do with as I liked. I had paid ten and sixpence for them, more than half my fortune. Faugh! was ever any one like me? Was that all I had come to Queensland for? But at all events this should not happen again. If I could find an a.s.s bigger than myself, thought I, I should be satisfied, but never again as long as I lived would I seek the acquaintance of people who by any stretch of imagination might think themselves my superiors.

Then I called in from the backyard a whole troup of dirty, lazy blacks, who were lying there basking in the sun in an almost naked condition, and made them understand that I would give them all my home clothes if they would perform a war dance in them for my instruction and pleasure.

One of them put on my swallow-tail coat and belltopper (he had no breeches), another got my overcoat, one of the ladies put on my jacket (she had nothing else), another put on my woollen comforter, not round her neck but round her waist, where it was of more use. At last I took my flute, and the whole troup kept screaming and dancing about in the backyard while I played, until my "boss" came and interrupted the proceedings. I felt a grim sort of satisfaction. Alas! there is no saying what is to become of any of us before the end is over. Clothes are lifeless things, yet how often had I not brushed them and thought it important that they should look well! I really felt a kind of remorse when I saw these filthy blacks lie wallowing in them amid a flock of yelping curs.

And now I fell to work at my trade in earnest. The houses in Bowen are all built of wood, and a very easy affair it is for any one to build them. Indeed housebuilding in the small Queensland towns can scarcely be called a trade, insomuch that any practical man who can use carpenter's tools could easily build his own house. A hammer and a coa.r.s.e saw was about a complete set of tools on many jobs we did up there. Still, large wooden houses filled with all the most modern comforts are also constructed, and in such none but the best workmanship is tolerated, so there, of course, a tradesman is indispensable. At all housebuilding, too, a man who is constantly at it acquires a quickness which would altogether outdistance the novice, but one may learn as he goes in that trade, and the best men I have met in the carpenter trade out here are men who never served their time to it.

There were no saw-mills in the town, nor was there any suitable timber to saw in the bush, so that we depended for a supply on an occasional schooner, or on what the steamers sometimes would bring. At times we had no timber at all. Then we had to make furniture out of the packing-cases in the stores, or the "boss" would buy an old humpy and pull it down, and we had to try to make a new one out of it. My employer had engaged another carpenter besides myself from among the immigrants. This man had got married at the depot to one of the girls, and they lived in a small house. He had thirty shillings a week, of which, of course, most went to keep house. But Bowen is one of the very few non-progressive towns on the coast, and houses stood empty in all directions, so that he only had to pay a nominal rent. Our "boss" seemed to have plenty of work always, and, besides ourselves, there were two and sometimes three English carpenters employed. We had to work like boys for them, because we could not very well be sent anywhere by ourselves, as we could not speak to people about the work to be done. One thing I might mention here, and which I think very unfair, is this, that n.o.body took the trouble to speak English to us, but they seemed even to go out of their way to teach us a sort of pigeon English, which, of course, would demonstrate our inferiority to the individual who addressed us. Although I do not dislike either English, Scottish, or Irish people, I think it a great delusion of theirs that they are more hospitable to foreigners, or cosmopolitan in their way of thinking, than other nationalities, but that they are under the impression that they are the salt of the earth is certain. Meanwhile my mate and I did the best we could to vindicate the honour of our country. I felt myself daily getting stronger and more active; the change of air did wonders, and so was it with my mate. After a while, we found we could fully hold our own. The English tradesmen were very fond of showing how much they could do, but as we both began to get up to their standard they would, as we worked under them, knock us off what we were doing and put us to something else, often with the evident intention of making the "boss," when he came, think we had not done much, or did not understand our work. So one day I had a terrible quarrel with the man with whom I was working on that account, and then he began to denounce us all for cutting the wages down. I had no intention of cutting down his wages, and I did not know in the least what wages he got, but when he told me that he received three pounds sterling every week I thought that the "boss" had treated me very badly.

I learned then that three pounds are the ordinary weekly wages for carpenters in Queensland, and I told the English carpenter that I would immediately ask the "boss" for an increase in _my_ wages to that amount, and that if he would not give it to me I would not do more work than I got paid for. I had been there six months at that time, and had never taken any money of my wages beyond what I received when I started, but when I asked for three pounds per week my employer was very dissatisfied. I wanted him to cancel the agreement. He refused, and I accused him of having taken an unfair advantage of me. He a.s.sured me that as he had got me he would keep me. "Very well," said I, "do your best to obtain your pound of flesh, but do not charge too high a day's wages when you send me away after this; I might not suit."

From that day there was war between us, war to the knife. Still I was, and had been, well treated there, and so far I had done my best to deserve it. When I think of it now, I am glad that before this occurred I had an opportunity to show my willingness. What my master's profit on me was I do not know, but it cannot have been large. What with my inability to speak the language, the learning how to handle the different tools used here, and one thing and another, it was unreasonable for me to expect the full wages at once. When I compare my fate with that which befell some of the other immigrants, I ought to have thought myself very fortunate. Some of these were sent out in the bush around the town, and among those who were a few miles distant, I heard much dissatisfaction existed. I will here relate how some, at least, were treated. One man and his wife, and four single men, were engaged at a station fifty miles away. Their agreements were all the same, thirty pounds per annum and rations. The woman, however, was not engaged. When they arrived at the place they found a small house in the middle of the bush. When they asked where were their rooms or place to camp in, their employer told them they might camp anywhere they liked as long as they did not come inside _his_ house. They had then got some bags and branches of trees put together and slept under them, but there was no protection from rain, and the poor woman, who was not well at the time, thought she was going to die. Instead of food, they were served, as I have before stated, with raw beef and flour. The reader may imagine what sort of doughboys they were making. This was strictly and correctly the truth, although these poor people certainly never knew the true intent of the agreement. They would not work, they said, unless they got proper food, but their employer was abusing them every day. They had to fell trees and split timber for fences. Of course such hard work, with no cooked food to eat and no bed to sleep in, was an unreasonable thing to expect from them. After six or seven weeks of this one of them went away, empowered by the others to go to town and complain for the others.

He came into town, where he told me what I now relate; but his "boss"

was after him quickly, and instead of obtaining redress, he was put in the lock-up fourteen days for absconding from his hired service, and then compelled to go back again! While he was in the lock-up, my "boss"

used to send him up three good meals every day. People who may read this at home will no doubt think that there must be great brutality somewhere for people to be treated like this. I agree with them. Yet the same treatment and fare comes light to an old hand. He knows what to expect, and is prepared for it. As men travel about from place to place in search of work, it is absolutely necessary for them to carry everything with them and to be their own cooks too. They have their tent, blanket, food, billy, sometimes a frying-pan, all bundled together with their clothes and strapped on their backs, or, if they are well-to-do, they have a horse to carry the "swag" for them, or even two horses, one being to ride on. There is really no reason why a man should not possess a couple of horses here, but still they as often do not. The billy serves all purposes: in it the meat is cooked, the tea is boiled, and on extra occasions the plumduff too.

It is only just to say that the custom of forcing men to camp out in their own tents and to cook their own rations is growing more and more out of use. In most places in the bush the employer now provides at least shelter for his men: in many places they have the food cooked as well; yet there are to this day thousands of people in Queensland who live as I have just described, and who never see vegetables from one year's end to another.

The reader will, therefore, see that I was comparatively fortunate in this, that I had both shelter and food while I was learning the language and accustoming myself to the country. But after my request for more wages had been refused, I did as little work as possible, indeed I may say I did scarcely anything. I played quite the _gamin_ with the old gentleman, until one day he offered to let me go, and then free once more I promised myself never again to sign away my liberty.

CHAPTER V.

TOWNSVILLE: MORE COLONIAL EXPERIENCES.

I had now paid out to me twelve pounds sterling as the balance of wages due, so it will be perceived that I had not been extravagant. Yet I am afraid that if I had been taking my wages up weekly I should not have had so much, if, indeed, anything. Yet here were the twelve pounds now, and that was the main thing. It made over a hundred Danish dollars, quite a large sum to me. Then I considered where I should go next. There were some gold mines inland within one or two hundred miles, but I did not know the road, or else I should have gone there. Just then there had been opened another port north of Port Denison, viz., Townsville. I understood that if a man wanted to make money, he should go there; or rather I understood the further north I went the more pay I should get, on account of its being hotter there, but that down south, were the climate was supposed to be better, carpenters where not in demand. So, "Northwards, ho!" was my cry. The steamer left Port Denison the next day for Townsville, and I was among the pa.s.sengers. It is on leaving one of these small ports on the Queensland coast that I have always more than at any other time been impressed with the utter loneliness in which they lie. One sees the few houses and appurtenances like a speck on the coast, and north and south the long vast coastline. We steamed along all the evening, night, and next morning, and towards noon my attention was directed to some small white specks on the beach. That was Townsville, the new settlement where money was to be made. The steamer I was in could not run close, but lay out in the bay until another very small steamer came out and took us all on board. Then in another half-hour we ran into a small creek, past three or four galvanized iron sheds, and here we were at the wharf in the middle of the main street of the town.

Townsville lies on the bank of a small river or creek called Ross Creek, which when I was there was remarkable for being stocked with alligators.

One could not very well, therefore, cross the creek without some danger, and at that time all the people and all the houses without a single exception, lay on the south side of the creek. Ross Creek formed, I might say, one side of the main street. Facing it lay a number of small shanties, some made of packing cases and old tin; others again, built with a view to permanency, of nicely dressed sawn timber, and looking like rich relations in contrast to their poor neighbours. This was Flinders Street, or Townsville proper. For about ten chains this row of houses ran, and facing it, on the other side of the creek, was one vast wilderness of swamp, long gra.s.s and trees. When one had pa.s.sed the row of houses composing the street there were turns off to the bush in all directions, and tents, huts, or sheets of galvanized iron stood all about the street. Up behind the street were some tremendous-looking mountains, and here such people as the doctors, civil servants, &c.

seemed to have fixed their abode. The most splendid views could be obtained up there right over the sea and the numerous small islands.

Then the climate, which at least at that time was supposed to be somewhat unhealthy down below, was very much better on the highlands.

While I was in Townsville my greatest pleasure was to take my lunch with me in a morning and then scramble up there to some place from which the best view could be had, and sit there all day. That was a cheap and harmless pleasure, but to do so at the present time would be trespa.s.s, because all the land about there is now sold at so much per foot, and no one but the owners have a right either to the soil or the air, or even the view. It seems wrong to me that it should be so. I wonder what will become of poor people when the day arrives when all the world is thus cut up into freehold property! If I had at that time invested the ten pounds I carried in my pocket in a piece of land, it would certainly have been worth thousands of pounds to-day, and I believe I might even have been worth tens of thousands. Then I might without further trouble have been myself a "leading Colonist" to-day!

On looking around one would scarcely think that this place and Bowen were in the same country. In Bowen everybody seemed to have plenty of time. The shopkeepers there would stand in their doorways most of their time, or go visiting one another. Then, although Bowen was so much larger than Townsville, there seemed to be no people in it. But here there were crowds everywhere, and seemingly not an idle man. People appeared rather to run than to walk. I walked up the street and looked into a half-finished building where half a dozen carpenters were at work. I watched them well. They were all men in their prime, and if they did not work above their strength they were good men a.s.suredly! There was quite a din of hammers and saws. It was terrible! I felt very much afraid that I should not be able to match myself against any one of them, but on the principle of not leaving until to-morrow what might be done to-day, I asked one where the "boss" was? He pointed to a man alongside who also was working terribly hard, and this gentleman sang out to me from the scaffold, "What do you want, young fellow?" So I said that I wanted work.

"All right," cried he, "I'll give you a job, but I have no time to talk before five o'clock; you can wait." Then I stood waiting, and feeling half afraid to tackle the work, until the "boss" sang out "five o'clock."

What a relief every man must have felt. Each seemed to drop his tool like a hot potato. I remember well my feelings. I knew before the contractor spoke to me that he was a bully, from the way he spoke to the other man. He came up to me.

"Well, what is it you can do?"

"I am a carpenter and joiner."

"Oh, you are a German."

"No, I am not."

"What sort of a new chum are you then?"

"I asked you if you wanted a carpenter."

"Where were you working before?"

"In Bowen."

"What wages did you get there?"

"Thirty pounds a year."

"Do you know that I expect my men to earn fourteen shillings a day?"

"I will do as much work as I can, and I do not expect you to pay me more than I can earn."

"Got any tools?"

"No."

"I do not want you then!"

Did ever any one get such an unprovoked insult? I felt as if I could never ask another man for work again. Although I had learned a little English, it was far from sufficient to allow me to set up and work on my own account. I knew that very well, and although I kept telling myself that most likely here there would be plenty of other contractors to go to, yet I was in very low spirits as I went off looking for a suitable boarding-house. The place I came to did not impress me as being either clean or comfortable. I went in at the door only because I saw on the signboard the words "Diggers' home," or "Bushman's home." I forget exactly what it was, but I understood there was "home" about it, and as I was just then longing very much for such comforts as the word "home"

is a.s.sociated with, I went in. It was just tea-time and about thirty men were sitting on two wooden forms around the one table, eating. The uncouth way in which they were gormandizing was terrible to witness.

English working people show, I think, greater anxiety to possess what are popularly called "table manners" than does the same cla.s.s where I came from. The former hold their knives and forks in faultless style, but they seem never to have learned what is the great point in table manners. This is a point on which I was very strictly brought up, and as one cannot very well criticise another's manner of eating while sitting alongside him at table, I think I might without offence give valuable advice here. It is this. Close your lips while you are eating, gentlemen. It does not matter half so much to some people how you hold your fork.

There were among the others at the table two of my shipmates, who, as they told me, were working at their trade for four pounds a week. They were dressed in the height of fashion, and would not speak Danish at all to me. One of them informed me in a sort of language that I am sure no Englishman could have understood, that he had almost quite forgotten Danish. As I had a craving just then for sympathy, I told them how I had fared when I had asked for work, but all the sympathy I received was the remark that it was smart fellows only who were needed in Townsville.

They agreed thoroughly about that, and then whenever they could repeat the formula "I get four pounds per week," they did it _ore rotundo_.

Evidently they had a heartfelt contempt for one like me, who had been working for only a few shillings a week. After tea, I was, on stating that I wanted to stay for a week, shown into a small room wherein stood six stretchers, or beds, as close as could be. One had scarcely room to squeeze about among them. The middle of the room seemed to be a sort of main pa.s.sage two feet wide between the beds on each side, leading to rooms beyond, and there the rest of the thirty boarders would tramp in and out. The landlord, on showing me one of these beds as mine, demanded a pound sterling of me in advance as one week's payment. "Beautiful home." "Comfortable abode." I regretted that I had left Bowen, as I thought of my clean private room there. I did not, however, pay for a week beforehand. I paid only for my supper and a shilling for the use of the bed or "home" for that night. I sat there on the bed for a quarter of an hour, listening to all the noises around me. Then I felt that I could not suffer it any longer, so I went out. It was a beautiful moonlight night. To get out past the houses was only the work of five minutes, and I kept walking on along a road I came to until I was well past all signs of civilization. I had taken my flute with me as the best means which yet remained to soothe my troubles, and then I sat down to play. How much better I felt out there under the gum-trees! That foul-smelling boarding-house seemed to trouble me no longer. I would not return to it. Better by far to sleep out there under the open sky! I sang and played and worked myself into quite a romantic feeling. At last I fell soundly asleep.

The next day I began more carefully to look out for a boarding-house, but it was all one. There were enough of them indeed, but in all there was not one which did not to my mind look more like a rabbit warren than a "home" or a "rest," or whatever the name might be that was put over the door. A couple of places were kept by Chinamen. They at least seemed more honest, because they made no pretence of offering their guests what they had not got. All the accommodation they offered was a shelf for each man, and there seemed to be an air of "take it or leave it alone"

about them which I liked. But none of these suited me, and so I went to the hotels, and for one pound ten shillings per week I got white man's accommodation: a room for myself and every civility. How anybody like my two grandly-dressed countrymen could, if they earned four pounds a week, prefer the other place to this, I did not understand.

I might now with much satisfaction have finished my writing here by telling the reader how I obtained work the next day for fourteen shillings per day, and how I saved and persevered until I myself became a contractor--if such had been the case. But the truth must be told, and that is that I kept delaying day by day to ask any one for a job. Every day I would walk about the town, and pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed houses under erection, but I could not bring myself to go and speak to any one for fear of meeting the same fate that befell me the day I arrived. When I came home to the hotel from such an expedition, I would console myself by recounting my money and reckoning up how many Danish dollars it was.

That seemed to rea.s.sure me. Certainly it went fast, but on the whole I was in no way alarmed over myself, because I knew very well that when the necessity came a little nearer I should easily get something to do.

Meanwhile I could go out every day shooting, fishing, and enjoying myself as best I could.

One of the first days I was in Townsville, I went out in the main road leading to the gold diggings, and when I was about a mile or two out of town I came to a house which attracted my attention. It was very small, the walls were built of saplings, the roof was covered with bark, tin, and all sorts of odd materials. The door was made of a sapling frame with bagging stretched across it. Yet the place had a cool, clean sort of appearance, and under the verandah in a home-made squatter's chair sat a man smoking a long pipe. Yet I should probably have pa.s.sed by without taking notice of any of these details if it had not been that in front of the house, but close to the road, was erected a sort of frame like a gallows, and from it dangled in a most conspicuous way an empty bottle. Underneath was a piece of board nailed to a tree, and on it was written with chalk the one word thrice repeated: "Bier. Bier. Bier."

That caused me to look at the man, and I perceived it was one of my shipmates. This man was between fifty and sixty years old when he landed nine months before with his wife and eight children. I am very certain that he did not then own more than I did myself, but he had on the voyage exhibited such a cheerful disposition, and had such a happy knack of always trying to explain things in a way that would make one think that any misfortune that might happen would have been just the very thing wanted, that he had been a general favourite. But when we came to Bowen n.o.body had engaged him and his eight children, and so he had been sent here, and now I saw him sitting smoking his pipe under the verandah with great gusto. He seemed as glad to see me as I was to see him, and asked me to come and sit on a box which stood alongside him, and to have a smoke out of his long pipe. Then he began to spin his yarn. His girls were at service, the two of them, and had each ten shillings per week, and they brought it all home, for they were good girls. He had got somebody to apply for this land for him on his land order, "and here,"

he said, "right and left is all mine. Me and mother built the house ourselves; come inside and see."

"But," said I, "what is the meaning of that empty bottle you have hung up there?"

"Oh," cried he, "did you not see my signboard. I sell beer. I cannot understand their blessed language, but I thought if I showed them the bottle they would know what it meant, and Annie drew that signboard herself last Sunday she was home; she is a splendid scholar, you know--you should only hear her talk English. It fetches them right enough. You will see nearly everybody who comes along the road must be in here and have his beer."

Then we went inside, and there were the old lady and her children, as happy as could be. Now I had to tell my history, and after much argument my friend made me believe that the reason the contractor had not given me a job was because I had told him the truth. "You should have said you earned fifteen shillings a day in Bowen, that you would not work under sixteen shillings now; that is the way. Always tell them you can do anything."