The Adventurous Seven Part 7

There was no stopping the cheers this time, and Nealie put her fingers in her ears because of the noise, but Mr. Wallis looked actually pleased at the commotion he had evoked; and then there was a great rush for the cabins, where each one had a bag or a bundle ready.

"What a delightful sensation it is to find firm ground under one's feet!" cried Nealie, as she walked with a springy step by the side of Mr. Wallis.

"I expect it is; but all the same you will be wise not to do too much walking at first, for land is apt to prove very trying to the person who has just arrived after a long voyage," replied Mr. Wallis, who had noticed how lame Rupert was, and guessed that the boy would rather suffer any torture than admit that walking was painful. He had his reward in the look of dumb grat.i.tude Rupert gave him when a roomy carriage had been secured, and they were all packed in as tight as sardines in a tin, with Don and Billykins sharing the driver's perch, and making shrill comments as they went along.

First of all they were driven to the hotel, which was a very homely sort of place, with a motherly manageress, who would insist on kissing the girls, although happily she stopped short at that, leaving the boys with a mere handshake. She was English herself, so she said, and just ached for a sight of the old country, which made her welcome so warmly everyone who came straight from England.

Mr. Wallis wanted them to have luncheon then, but as they all stoutly declared that they could not touch a mouthful of food of any kind, and as it was really early for lunch, he took them off, on a tram this time, to see something of the city.

He took them along George Street, which, following as it does the lines of an old bush trail, winds and wriggles in a way that was more suggestive of Canterbury in England than of a great colonial city.

Sometimes they rode in electric trams, sometimes they had a carriage chartered for their use, and then again it was an omnibus which had the honour of their patronage, and Nealie privately wondered how much it cost Mr. Wallis to take them round that day, for he would let them pay for nothing themselves, declaring that he would not have his privilege as their host infringed in any way.

They had lunch in a grand hotel in Wynyard Square, and afterwards went to see the residence of the Governor-General; but imposing as were the battlemented walls and magnificent staterooms, the greatness of the place was not so impressive to the seven as was the General Post Office, and they were made completely happy when Mr. Wallis took them right to the top of the building, so that they might look out over the city from the windows of the room under the clock chamber of the great tower.

It was small wonder that they were so tired, after such a round of sightseeing, that they had to decline Mr. Wallis's kind proposal to take them to a dramatic entertainment, which was being given that night in the town hall.

Ducky, Don, and Billykins were all three so fast asleep, when they arrived back at the hotel where they were staying, that one of the waiters had to be called to help carry the sleepers in and up to their bedrooms, and as they could not be roused for supper they were just left to have their sleep out, and the four elders had cakes and coffee on the balcony overlooking Pitt Street.

"I wonder what dear Father is thinking about to-night," said Sylvia dreamily, as she sat in a wicker chair, with her feet upon another, feeling at peace with all the world.

"Perhaps his ears are burning, and he is wondering who is talking about him; although a man with seven children may always feel pretty certain that one or more of the seven have got their thoughts upon him," replied Rumple, who was nibbling the end of a stumpy pencil and lovingly fingering a dirty little notebook. He was just then very undecided as to whether he would write a sonnet to his father or start on a history of Sydney. Mr. Wallis had told him so many stories of the old Botany Bay days that he felt quite primed for a very ambitious book indeed.

"I am wondering who is going to drive the horse," said Rupert, whose foot was aching badly, and consequently making him feel very depressed and unfit to cope with difficulties which might be looming in the near distance.

"I shall, unless you especially yearn for the business," said Nealie quietly, and then her hand stole into his with such a complete understanding of how he felt at that moment that he blessed her in his heart, and said to himself that she was a brick of a girl, and that it was worth while to be her brother.

Somehow Nealie always understood without words when Rupert felt as if life were something too big to be lived, and then she would fling herself into the breach, and let him feel that she was quite ready to hold up the heavier end of every burden.

"The poor animal will not cherish any illusions about the charms of running away after it has had the pleasure of dragging us and our baggage for a few score miles. I think that we ought to have a pair,"

put in Sylvia in a dreamy tone; she was getting very sleepy, only it seemed too much trouble to go to bed just yet.

"Oh, we cannot have two horses; think what a worry it would be!"

exclaimed Nealie. "Mr. Wallis said that one would be quite sufficient, as we did not need to travel very fast. He said that one horse, if it were well fed, could always draw a ton weight on a decent road, and we should not weigh a ton, I should hope."

"Not far short of it, by the time baggage and wagon have been weighed in, as well as the seven of us," said Rupert, and then he called out that Rumple was asleep. The first paragraph of the projected History of Sydney had been too much for the aspiring young author, who was snoring with his nose on the grubby little notebook.

"We cannot carry him to bed, and I am afraid that the waiters will form a very poor opinion of us if we ask them to do it, so we must wake him if we can," said Sylvia, jumping up and starting on a vigorous shaking of her younger brother.

"It is of no use, dear; he will not wake up, and you and I must just drag him into his room as best we can," said Nealie, interposing to prevent Rumple from being shaken and b.u.mped any more.

"What a set of children ours are!" cried Sylvia impatiently. "If once they drop asleep there never seems any possibility of waking them before the next morning."

"It is not more than a year ago that Mrs. Puffin and I carried you up to bed one night when you had fallen asleep downstairs," replied Nealie, with a laugh. "I remember that we stuck fast in the narrow part just outside Aunt Judith's door, and we could not get up or down; indeed it looked not improbable that we might have to leave you there until morning, climbing over your sleeping form every time we wanted to pa.s.s up or down. Then Mrs. Puffin had a happy inspiration, and, acting upon it, we slid a sheet under you, and, Rupert coming to our help, we dragged you up the last four steps by sheer force of arm."

"I remember it," laughed Sylvia. "That was the time when I dreamed that I was tobogganing down the Rocky Mountains, and when I woke up next morning, and found how badly I was bruised, I thought that it really must be true, and no dream at all. How shall we carry him, Nealie? Will it be easier to join hands under him, or to haul him out feet first?"

"Feet first, I think," she answered. "It is not safe to join hands under sleeping persons, because you have no hand free to catch them if they sway. If you will carry his feet, I will take his shoulders, and we will soon have him on his bed. Then I think we had better go to bed also, for it would be tragic if we fell asleep; we should have to stay where we are all night, because there is no one strong enough to carry us;" and Nealie's laugh rang out, as if she had not a care in the world, and was promptly echoed by Rupert and Sylvia.

CHAPTER VII

The One-armed Man

The seven had hardly finished breakfast next morning when Mr. Wallis arrived. Surely never had an elderly gentleman taken to sightseeing with the avidity displayed by this one, and every one of the seven Plumsteads voted him to be "a jolly decent sort".

His first move this morning was to take them across the harbour in a steam ferry to a small jetty opposite the Circular Quay, where they transhipped to a tiny tug which took them to Farm Cove, round Clark Island, and past the other sights of that most wonderful harbour; and all the time he told them thrilling stories of the early days of the Colony. He told them of the voyage of Captain Phillips, who set out from Portsmouth in May, 1787, and arrived, with eleven ships, in Botany Bay in January, 1788, only to find that Botany Bay was by no means what it had been represented, and, instead of the land being a series of beautiful green meadows sloping gently up from the sh.o.r.e, there was nothing but swamp and sand.

"What an awful voyage! I don't think that we will complain about our few weeks on board after that!" cried Sylvia, who was sitting close to Mr.

Wallis on the deck of the tug, while Rupert sat on the deck at his feet and Rumple hovered in the background, all of them intent on getting all the information they could about the new and wonderful country to which they had come.

"The voyage now is nothing but a pleasure trip compared with what it used to be in the days of the old sailing vessels," said Mr. Wallis, who was immensely flattered at the attention given to his stories. He had always been very fond of telling people things, only the trouble was that so few seemed to care for what he had to tell; but these children simply hung on his words, and so he was inspired to do his very best to satisfy their thirst for information.

"Botany Bay is south of Sydney Harbour, isn't it?" asked Rumple, producing the dirty notebook and preparing to take notes on a liberal scale.

"Yes, and because it is so open to the east there is no protection from the Pacific swell. Captain Phillips saw that it would be impossible to found a colony there, and so he set out with one of his ships to find a better harbour farther along the coast," went on Mr. Wallis. "And it is said that a sailor named Jackson discovered the entrance to what is now known as Sydney Harbour, and it was named Port Jackson in honour of him."

"I wish that I could discover something that could be named after me,"

said Rumple with a sigh. "Port Plumstead, or even Mount Plumstead, would have an uncommonly nice sound, and I do want to be famous."

"There is fame of a sort within the reach of everyone," answered Mr.

Wallis quietly.

"What sort of fame?" asked Rupert quickly. He had been very silent before, leaving it to the others to do most of the talking.

Mr. Wallis smiled, and his middle-aged countenance took on a look of lofty n.o.bility as he said slowly: "We can each impress ourselves on our fellows in such a way that so long as life lasts they must remember us because of some act or acts for the good of suffering humanity, and that, after all, is the fame that lasts longest and is at the same time most worth having. We can't all be explorers, you know, for there would not be enough bays, mountains, and that sort of thing to go round; but there are always people in need of help, pity, and comfort."

"I wanted to be a doctor," said Rupert in a voice that was more bitter than he guessed. "But who ever heard of a lame doctor? Everyone would be howling for the physician to heal himself."

"There is no reason why you should not be a doctor that I can see: not if you do not mind hard work that is," said Mr. Wallis. "I have known lame doctors and hump-backed doctors too; indeed one's own disability would serve to make one all the more keen on doing one's best for other people. In the Colony, too, there is not the money bar that exists in the old country, because anyone can rise from the gutter here to any position almost that he may choose to occupy, and you are not in the gutter by any means."

"Not quite," replied Rupert with a laugh, and a lift of his head like Nealie.

The tour of the harbour took so long that they did not get back to the city until the afternoon, and then their kind host carried them off to tea at the Botanical Gardens, which were one of the finest sights that any of them had seen. Ducky fairly screamed with delight at the lovely flowers, while Don and Billykins could hardly be induced to leave the ornamental waters where the water fowl congregated looking for food.

Nealie and Mr. Wallis came in search of them when tea was ready, and found them absorbed in watching a toucan from America and a rhinoceros hornbill from Africa, which appeared to have struck up a friendship from the fact that they were both aliens.

"Come to tea, boys; you can inspect those creatures later if you want to," said Mr. Wallis.

"I say, Nealie, what does the toucan want to have such a long bill for?" asked Billykins, slipping his arm through Nealie's as they walked back to the tearooms together.

"Perhaps he did not want to have a long bill, but having it must needs make the best of it," she answered, with a laugh, then suddenly grew grave with pity and concern as a man with his right coat sleeve pinned across his breast pa.s.sed them at the place where the path grew narrow.

They all knew that for some reason it always made her sad to see a one-armed man, although she took no especial notice of people who had been so unfortunate as to lose a leg. Mindful of this fact, Billykins was trying to divert her attention by talking very fast about what he had seen; but twisting his head round to see if the maimed stranger was leaving the gardens or taking the other path which led by a picturesque bridge round to the other entrance to the tearooms, he was surprised to see him stop and speak to Mr. Wallis, who was walking behind with Don.

"Did you see that man with one arm, who pa.s.sed us just now and spoke to me?" said Mr. Wallis, joining Nealie and walking by her side.