The Record of Nicholas Freydon Part 6

I could not honestly say that I think the sisters ever gave anything fine, or approximately fine, to one of their young slaves. They taught us, most efficiently, to work, to do what Americans call 'Ch.o.r.es.' No word they ever let fall gave a hint of any real conception of what life might or should mean. I recall nothing in the nature of an inspiration. Some of us, myself included, possessed considerable capacity for loving, for devotion. This latent faculty was never drawn upon, I think, by any of the sisters. We feared them, of course. We even respected their ability, strength, and authority. We certainly never loved them.

In fact, I do not think it was ever hinted to one of us that there was anything beautiful in life. There were wonderful and miraculous things connected with the Virgin and the Infant Christ. But these were not of the world we knew, and, in any case, they were matters of which Father O'Malley possessed the key. They had nothing to do with the farm, with our work, or with us, outside the chapel. Heaven might be beautiful.

There was another place that very certainly was horrible. Meantime, there was our own daily life, and that was--ch.o.r.es. That this should have been so means, in my present opinion, a lamentable waste of young life and of unique powers. I consider that our young lives were sterilised rather than developed, and that such sterilisation must have meant permanent and irrevocable loss for every one of the orphans, myself included.

But I would be the last to deny the very real capacity and ability of the sisters in their discharge of the duties laid upon them. I have no doubt at all about it that they succeeded to admiration in doing what Father O'Malley and the powers behind him (whoever they may have been) desired done. I can well believe that the Orphanage justified itself from a utilitarian standpoint. I believe it paid well as a farm. And I do not see how any one could have extracted more in charity from the inhabitants of the district (and, too, from the orphans) than the sisters did. Oh, I give them all credit for their competence and efficiency.

Indeed, I find it little less than wonderful to recall the manner in which the Sister-in-charge and her three a.s.sistants maintained the perfect discipline of that Orphanage, with never an appeal for the a.s.sistance of masculine brute force. The Australian-born boy is not by any means the most docile or meek of his species; and, occasionally, a newly arrived orphan would a.s.sert himself after the universal urchin fashion. Such minor outbreaks were never allowed to produce scenes, however. We had no intimidating executions; no birch-rods in pickle, or anything of that sort. Sister Agatha and Sister Catharine were given rather to slappings, pinchings, and the vicious tweaking of ears. I have seen Sister Agatha kick an orphan's bare toes, or his bare shin, with the toe of her boot; and at such times she could throw a formidable amount of venom into two or three words, spoken rather below than above the ordinary conversational pitch of her voice. But ceremonial floggings were unknown at St. Peter's. And indeed I can recall no breaches of discipline which seemed to demand any such punishment.

The most usual form of punishment was the docking of a meal. We fed at three long tables, and sat upon forms. Meals were a fairly serious business, because we were always hungry. A boy who was reported to the Sister-in-charge, say, for some neglect of his work, would have his dinner stopped. In that case it would be his unhappy lot to stand with his hands penitentially crossed upon his chest, behind his place at table, while the rest of us wolfed our meal. By a refinement which, at the time, seemed to me very uncalled for, the culprit had to say grace, before and after the meal, aloud and separately from the rest of us.

There were occasions upon which we were one and all found wanting.

Eggs had been stolen, work had been badly done; something had happened for which no one culprit could be singled out, and all were held to blame. Upon such an occasion we were made to lay the dinner-tables as usual, and to wait upon the sisters at their own table, and for the rest of an hour to stand to attention, with hands crossed around the long tables. Then we cleared the tables and marched out to work, each nursing the vacuum within him, where dinner should have been, and, presumably, resolving to amend his wicked ways.

Boys are, of course, curious creatures. I have said that we were always hungry. I think we were. And yet the staple of our breakfast (which never varied during the whole of my time there) was never once eaten by me, though I was repeatedly punished for leaving it. The dish was 'skilly,' or porridge of a kind, with which (except on the church's somewhat numerous fast-days) we were given treacle. The treacle I would lap up greedily, but at the porridge my gorge rose. I simply could not swallow it. Ordinary porridge I had always rather liked, but this ropy mess was beyond me; and, hungry though I was, I counted myself fortunate on those mornings when I was able to go empty away from the breakfast-table without punishment for leaving this detestable skilly. If Sister Agatha or Sister Catharine were on duty, it meant that I would have at least one spoonful forced into my mouth and held there till cold sweat bedewed my face. In addition there would be pinchings, slappings, and ear-tweakings--very painful, these last. And sometimes I would be reported, and docked of that day's dinner to boot. But Sister Mary would more often than not pa.s.s me by without a glance at my bowl, and for that I was profoundly grateful.

In fact, I could almost have loved that good woman, but that she had a physical affliction which nauseated me. Her breath caused me to shudder whenever she approached me. She had a mild, cow-like eye, however, and I do not think I ever saw her kick a boy.

Yes, when I look back upon that queer chapter of my life, I am bound to admit that, however much they may have neglected opportunities that were open to them, as moulders of human clay, those four sisters did accomplish rather wonderful results in ruling St. Peter's Orphanage, without any appeal to sheer force of arms. There were young men among us, yet the sisters' rule was never openly defied. I think the secret must have had to do chiefly with work and food. We were never idle, we were always hungry, and we never had any opportunities for relaxation.

I never saw any kind of game played at the Orphanage; and on Sundays devotions of one kind or another were made to fill all intervals between the different necessary pieces of work, such as milking, feeding stock, cleaning, and so forth.

We began the day at five o'clock in the summer, and six in the winter, and by eight at night all lights were out. We had lessons every day; and there, oddly enough, in school, the cane was adjudged necessary, as an engine of discipline, and used rather freely on our hands--hands, by the way, which were apt at any time to be a good deal chipped and scratched, and otherwise knocked about by our outdoor work. So far as I remember our schooling was of the most primitive sort, and confined to reading aloud, writing from dictation, and experimenting with the first four rules of arithmetic. History we did not touch, but we had to memorise the names of certain continents, capitals, and rivers, I remember.

All this ought to have been the merest child's play for me; it certainly was a childish form of study. But I did not appear to pick up the trick of it, and I remember being told pretty frequently to 'Hold out your hand, Nicholas!' I had a clumsy knack of injuring my finger-tips, and getting splinters into my hands, in the course of outdoor work. The splinters produced little gatherings, and I dare say this made penmanship awkward. I know it gave added terrors to the canings, and, too, I thought it gave added zest to Sister Agatha's use of that instrument in my case. Unfortunately for me Sister Agatha, and not the mild-eyed Sister Mary, was the schoolmistress.

It may be, of course, that I lay undue stress upon the painful or unpleasant features of our life at the Orphanage, because I was unhappy there, and detested the place. But certainly if I could recall any brighter aspects of the life there I would set them down. I do not think there were any brighter aspects for me, at all events. I not only had no pride in myself here; I took shame in my lot.

On the first Sunday in each month visitors were admitted. Any one at all could come, and many local folk did come. They made it a kind of excursion. I was glad that our devotions kept us a good deal out of the visitors' way, because, especially at first, I had a fear of recognising among them some one of the handful of people in Australia whom I might be said to have known--fellow-pa.s.sengers by the _Ariadne_. The thought of being recognised as an 'inmate' by Nelly Fane was dreadful to me; and even more, I fancy, I dreaded the mere idea of being seen by Fred-without-a-surname. I pictured him grinning as he said: 'Hallo! you in this place? You an orphan, then?' I think I should have slain him with my wood-chopping axe.

On these visitors' days we all wore boots and clothes which were never seen at other times. I hated mine most virulently, because they were not mine, but had been worn by some other boy before they came to me.

It was never given to me to learn what became of the ample store of clothing I had on board the _Livorno_. The sisters were exceedingly thorough in detail. On the mornings of these visitors' Sundays, before going out to work, we 'dressed' our beds. That is to say we were given sheets, and made to arrange them neatly upon our beds. Before retiring at night we had to remove these sheets and refold them with exact care, under the sister's watchful eyes, so that they might be fresh and uncreased for next visitors' Sunday. We never saw them at any other times. Our boots really were rather a trial. Running about barefoot all day makes the feet swell and spread. It hardens them, certainly, but it makes the use of boots, and especially of hard, ill-fitting boots, abominably painful.

And with it all, having said that I detested the place and was unhappy during all my time there, how is it I cannot leave the matter at that?

For I cannot. I do not feel that I have truly and fully stated the case. It is not merely that I have made no attempt to follow my life there in detail. No such exhaustive and exhausting record is needed.

But I do desire to set down here the essential facts of each phase in my life.

I have referred already to the precociously developed trick I had of savouring life as a spectator, of observing myself as a figure in an ill.u.s.trated romance--probably the hero. Now, as I am certain this habit was not entirely dropped during my life at St. Peter's, I think one must argue that I cannot have been entirely and uniformly unhappy there. Indeed, I am sure I was not, because I can distinctly remember luxuriating in my sadness. I can remember translating it into unspoken words, the while my head was cushioned in the flank of a cow at milking time, describing myself and my forlorn estate as an orphan and an 'inmate' to myself. And, without doubt, I derived satisfaction from that. I can recall picturesquely vivid contrasts drawn in my mind between Master Nicholas Freydon, as the playmate of Nelly Fane on the _Ariadne_, and the son of the distinguished-looking Mr. Freydon whom every one admired, and as the 'inmate' of St. Peter's, trudging to and fro among the other orphans, with corns on the palms of his hands and bruises and scratches on his bare legs and feet.

And then when visitors were about: 'If they only knew,' 'If they could have seen,' 'If I were to tell them'--such phrases formed the beginning of many thoughts in my mind. I can remember endeavouring to mould my expression upon such occasions to fit the part I consciously played; to adopt the look I thought proper to the disinherited aristocrat, the gently-nurtured child now outcast in the world, the orphan. Yes, I distinctly remember, when a visitor of any parts at all was in sight, composing my features and att.i.tude to suit the orphan's part, as distinguished from that of the mere typical 'inmate,' who, incidentally, was an orphan too. I found secret consolation in the conception that however much I might be in St. Peter's Orphanage, I would never be wholly of it--a real 'inmate' I remember, as I thought not unskilfully, scheming to arouse Sister Mary's interest in me, as I had aroused the interest of other people in myself on the _Ariadne_ and elsewhere, and only relinquishing my pursuit when baffled, upon contact, by the poor sister's physical infirmity before-mentioned. I am bound to say that she made less response to my overtures than that made by the cows I milked, who really did show some mild, bovine preference for me.

But there it is. In view of these things I cannot have been wholly unhappy, for I remained a keenly interested observer of life, and of my own meanderings on its stage. But I will say that I liked St.

Peter's less than any other place I had known, and that mentally, morally, emotionally, and spiritually, as well as physically, I was rather starved there. The life of the place did arrest my development in all ways, I think, and it may be that I have suffered always, to some extent, from that period of insufficient nutrition of mind and body.

III

The custom of St. Peter's Orphanage was to allow farmers and local residents generally to choose an orphan, as they might pick out a heifer or a colt from a stockyard, and take him away for good--or ill.

I believe the only stipulation was that the orphan could not in any case be returned to St. Peter's. If the selector found him to be a damaged or incomplete orphan, that was the selector's own affair, and he had to put up with his bargain as best he might. The person who chose an orphan in this way became responsible for the boy's maintenance while boyhood lasted, and I believe it was not customary to send out lads under the age of ten or twelve years. After a time the people who took these lads into their service were, theoretically, supposed to allow them some small wage, in addition to providing them with a home.

It was rather a blow to my self-esteem, I remember, to see my companions being removed from the inst.i.tution one by one as time ran on, and to note that n.o.body appeared to want me. I may have been somewhat less st.u.r.dy than the average run of 'inmates,' but I think we were all on the spare and lean side. It is possible, however, that in view of my father's legacy to St. Peter's, the authorities felt it inc.u.mbent upon them to keep me. The departure of a boy always had an unsettling effect upon me; and when, as happened now and again, an ex-inmate paid us a visit on a Sunday, possibly with members of the family with whom he worked, I was filled with yearning interest in the life of the world outside our island farm and workshop.

But these yearnings of mine were quite vague; mere amorphous emanations of the mind, partaking of the nature of nostalgia, and giving birth to nothing in the shape of plans, nor even of definite desires. Then, suddenly, this vague uneasiness became the dominant factor in my daily life, as the result of one of those apparently haphazard chances upon which human progress and development so often seem to pivot.

In the late afternoon of a visitors' Sunday, as I was making my way down to the milking-yard with a pail on either arm, my eyes fell upon the broad shoulders of a man who was leaning contemplatively over the slip-rails of the yard. The sight of those shoulders sent a thrill right through me; it touched the marrow of my spine. I, who had thought myself the most forlorn and friendless of orphans; I had a friend, and he was here before me. There was no need to see his face.

I knew those shoulders.

'Ted!' I cried. And positively I had to exercise deliberate self-restraint to prevent myself from rushing at our _Livorno_ friend and factotum, and flinging my arms about him, as in infantile days I had been wont to make embracing leaps at Amelia from the kitchen table of the house off Russell Square.

'G.o.d spare me days! Is it you, then, chum?' exclaimed Ted, as he swung round on his high heels. (In those days the Sunday rig of men like Ted Reilly comprised much-polished, pointed-toe, elastic-side boots with very high heels, and voluminously 'bell-bottomed' trousers.) I rattled questions at him, as peas from a pea-shooter; and when I had laid aside my buckets he pumped away at my right arm, as though providing water to put a fire out.

It seemed he had only that week returned to the district, after a long spell of wandering and desultory working in southern Queensland. No, he had not had time yet to go out to the _Livorno_, and he had not heard of my father's death--'Rest his soul for as good an' kindly a gentleman as ever walked!' And so--'Spare me days!'--I was an orphan at St. Peter's! The queer thing it was he had taken it into his head to be wandering that way, an' all, having nothing else to do to pa.s.s the time, like! How I blessed the casual ways of the man, the marked absence of 'Systum' in his character, that led him to make such excursions! He squatted beside me on his heels, whilst I, fearing admonition from above, got to work with my cows, and saw the rest of the milking gang started.

Pa.s.sionate disappointment swept across my mind when I learned that he had been several hours on the island before I saw him, and that it wanted now but ten minutes to five o'clock, the hour at which the punt made its last trip with visitors. And in almost the same moment joy shook and thrilled me as I realised the romantic hazard of our meeting at all, which was accentuated really by the narrowness of our margin of time. A matter of minutes and he would be gone. A matter of minutes and I should never have seen him at all. But that could not have been.

I refused to contemplate a life at St. Peter's in which this inestimable amelioration (now nearly five minutes old) played no part.

The hopeless emptiness of life at the Orphanage without a meeting with Ted was something altogether too harrowing to be dwelt upon. It could not have been borne.

'You'll be here first thing next visitors' Sunday, Ted--first thing?'

I charged him, as he rose in response to the puntman's bell. 'I couldn't stand it if you didn't come, Ted.'

'Oh, I'll come, right enough, chum. But that's a month. Why, spare me days, surely I---'

'You'll have to go, Ted. That's his last ring. Sister Agatha's looking. Don't seem to take much notice o' me, Ted, or she might-- Oh, good-bye, Ted! Don't seem to be noticing. Good-bye, good-bye!'

My head was back in the cow's flank now, and very hot tears were running down my cheeks and into the milk-pail. My lip was cut under my front teeth, and--'Oh, Ted, first thing in the morning--don't forget the Sunday,' I implored, as he pa.s.sed away, drawing one hand caressingly across my shoulder as he went.

In a hazy, golden dream I finished my milking, staggering and swaying up to the dairy under my two br.i.m.m.i.n.g pails, and turned to the remaining tasks of the evening, longing for bed-time and liberty to review my amazing good fortune in privacy; thirsting for it, as a tippler for his liquor. I dared not think about it at all before bed-time. In some recondite way it seemed that would have been indecent, an exposure of my new treasure to the vulgar gaze. Now, it was securely locked away inside me, absolutely hidden. And there it must remain until, lights being doused, I could draw it out under the friendly cover of my coa.r.s.e bed-clothes (after visiting-day sheets had been removed) and voluptuously abandon myself to it. Meantime, I moved among my fellows as one having possession of a talisman which raised him far above the cares and preoccupations of the common herd. I even looked forward with pleasure to the next day, to Monday! I should have no breakfast. Sister Agatha would be on duty. I should be pestered, and probably robbed of dinner, too. But what of that? The coming of that cheerless and hungry Monday would carry me forward one whole day toward the next visitors' Sunday, and--Ted.

I had not begun yet to consider in any way the question of how seeing Ted could help me. Enough for me that I had seen him; that I had a friend; and that I should see him again. Indeed, even if I had had no hope of seeing him again, I still should have been thrilled through and through by the delicious kindliness, the romantic interest of the thought that, out there in the world beyond Myall Creek, I had a friend; a free and powerful man, moving about independently among the citizens of the great world, in which Sister Agatha was a mere n.o.body; in which all sorts of delightful things continually happened, in which task work was no more than one incident in a daily round compact of other interests, hazards, meetings, and--and of freedom.

It was extraordinary the manner in which ten minutes in the society of a man, who would have been adjudged by many most uninspiring, had transformed me. It seemed the mere sight of this simple bushman, in his 'bell-bottomed' Sunday trousers, had lifted me up from a slough of hopeless inertia to a plane upon which life was a master musician, and all my veins the strings from which he drew his magic melodies.

IV

A week pa.s.sed, and brought us to another Sunday. On this morning I stepped out of bed into the dimness of the dawn light, full of elation.

'It's only seven weeks now to next visitors' day. In seven weeks I shall see Ted again. Seven times seven days--why, it's nothing, really,' I told myself.

By this time I had devised a plan for helping Time on his way. It hardly commends itself to my mature judgment, but great satisfaction was derived from it at the time. It consisted merely of telling myself in so many words that a month comprised eight weeks. Thus, ostensibly, I had seven weeks to wait. But my secret self knew that the reality was incredibly better than that. Next Sunday, outwardly, I should have only six weeks to wait, the following Sunday only five. And then, a week later, with only a paltry four weeks to wait, my secret self would be thrilling with the knowledge that actually the day itself had come, and only an hour or so divided me from Ted. Childish, perhaps, but it comforted me greatly; and, to some extent, I have indulged the practice through life. With a mile to walk when tired, I have caught myself, even quite late in life, comforting myself with the absurd a.s.surance that another 'couple of miles' would bring me to my destination! To the naturally sanguine temperament this particular folly would be impossible, though its ant.i.thesis is pretty frequently indulged in, I fancy.

And so it was while going about my various duties, nursing the pretence that in seven more weeks I should see my friend again, that I came face to face with the man himself; then, after no more than one little week of waiting, and when no visitors at all were due. I gasped. Ted grinned cordially. Sister Mary was on duty. Ted showed her a note from Father O'Malley, and she nodded amiably. Thrice blessed G.o.ddess! Her fat, white face took on angelic qualities in my eyes. One little movement of her hooded head, and I was wafted from purgatory, not into heaven, but into a place which seemed to me more attractive, into the freedom of the outside world--Ted's world. Not that I was permitted to leave the island, but, until the time for evening milking, I was allowed to walk about the farm and talk at ease with Ted. By a further miracle of the G.o.ddess's complaisance I was permitted to ignore the Orphanage dinner that day, and intoxicate myself with Ted upon sandwiches and cakes and ginger-beer. That was a banquet, if you like!

It seemed that Father O'Malley was quite well disposed toward Ted, and had even allowed him to make a little contribution (which he could ill spare) to the Orphanage funds. With what seemed to me transcendent audacity Ted had actually tried to adopt me, to take me into his service, as neighbouring farmers took other orphans from St. Peter's.

This had been firmly but quite pleasantly declined; but Ted had been given permission to come and see me whenever he liked, on Sundays--upon any Sunday. I could have hugged the man. His achievement seemed to me little short of miraculous. I figured Ted manipulating threads by which nations are governed. To be able to bend to one's will august administrators, people like Father O'Malley! Truly, the world outside St. Peter's was a wondrous place, and the life of its free citizens a thing most delectable.

We talked, but how we did talk, all through that sunny, windy Sunday!

(A bright, dry westerly had been blowing for several days.) I gathered that Ted was in his customary condition of impecuniosity, and that, much against his inclination, it would be necessary for him to take a job somewhere before many days had pa.s.sed; or else--and I saw, with a pang of desolate regret, that his own feeling favoured the alternative--to pack his swag and be off 'on the wallaby'; on the tramp, that is, putting in an occasional day's work, where this might offer, and sleeping in the bush. He was a born nomad. Even I had realised this. And he liked no other life so well as that of the 'traveller,' which, in Australia, does not mean either a bagman or a tourist, but rather one who strolls through life carrying all his belongings on his back, working but very occasionally, and camping in a fresh spot every night.

It required no great penetration upon Ted's part to see that I was weary of St. Peter's. (My first day at the Orphanage had brought me to that stage.)