The Workingman's Paradise Part 15

"All right," said Connie, not pressing, with true tact. "Will you come on Monday too, Ned?" she asked, moving to the door under the hangings with Nellie. Josie slipped quickly out on to the verandah with George.

"I must be off on Monday," replied Ned, regretfully. "There's a shed starts the next week, and I said I'd be up there to see that it sh.o.r.e union. I'm very sorry, but I really can't wait."

"I'm so sorry, too. But it can't be helped. Some other time, Ned." And nodding to him Connie went out with Nellie.

"So we shan't see you again," said Stratton, lighting a cigar at the gas.

Ford had resumed his puffing at his black pipe and his seat on the table.

"Not soon at any rate," answered Ned. "I shall be in Western Queensland this time next week."

"The men are organising fast up that way, aren't they?" asked Stratton.

"They had to," said Ned. "What with the Chinese and the squatters doing as they liked and hating the sight of a white man, we'd all have been cleared out if we hadn't organised."

"Coloured labour has been the curse of Queensland all through," remarked Ford.

"I think it has made Queensland as progressive as it is, too," remarked Geisner. "It was a common danger for all the working cla.s.ses, and from what I hear has given them unity of feeling earlier than that has been acquired in the south."

"Some of the old-fashioned union ideas that they have in Sydney want knocking badly," remarked Arty, smoking cheerfully.

"They'll be knocked safely enough if they want knocking," said Geisner.

"There are failings in all organisation methods everywhere as well as in Sydney. New Unionism is only the Old Unionism reformed up to date. It'll need reforming itself as soon as it has done its work."

"Is the New Unionism really making its way in England, Geisner?" asked Stratton.

"I think so. A very intelligent man is working with two or three others to organise the London dock laborers on the new lines. He told me he was confident of success but didn't seem to realise all it meant. If those men can be organised and held together for a rise in wages it'll be the greatest strike that the world has seen yet. It will make New Unionism."

"Do you think it possible?" asked Ford. "I know a little about the London dockers. They are the drift of the English labour world. When a man is hopeless he goes to look for work at the docks."

"There is a chance if the move is made big enough to attract attention and if everything is prepared beforehand. If money can be found to keep a hundred thousand penniless men out while public opinion is forming they can win, I think. Even British public opinion can't yet defend fourpence an hour for casual work."

"Men will never think much until they are organised in some form or other," said Stratton. "Such a big move in London would boom the organisation of unskilled men everywhere."

"More plots!" cried Connie, coming back, followed by Nellie, waterproofed and hatted.

"It's raining," she went on, to Ned, "so I'll give you Harry's umbrella and let Ford take his waterproof. You'll have a damp row, Nellie. I suppose you know you've got to go across in George's boat, Ned."

Ned didn't know, but just then George's "Ahoy!" sounded from outside.

"We mustn't keep him waiting in the wet," exclaimed Nellie. She shook hands with them all, kissing Mrs. Stratton affectionately. Ned felt as he shook hands all round that he was leaving old friends.

"Come again," said Stratton, warmly. "We shall always be glad to see you."

"Indeed we shall," urged Connie. "Don't wait to come with Nellie. Come and see us any time you're in Sydney. Day or night, come and see if we're in and wait here if we're not."

Geisner and Stratton put on their hats and went with them down the verandah stops to the little stone quay below. Josie was standing there, in the drizzle, wrapped in a cloak and holding a lantern. In a rowing skiff, alongside, was George; another lantern was set on one of the seats.

"Are you busy to-morrow afternoon?" asked Geisner of Ned, as Nellie was being handed in, after having kissed Josie.

"Not particularly," answered Ned.

"Then you might meet me in front of the picture gallery between one and two, and we can have a quiet chat."

"All aboard!" shouted George.

"I'll be there," answered Ned, shaking hands again with Geisner and Stratton and with Josie, noticing that that young lady had a very warm clinging hand.

"Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!" From the three on sh.o.r.e.

"Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!" From the three in the boat as George shoved off.

"Good-bye!" cried Connie's clear voice from the verandah. "Put up the umbrella, Ned!"

Ned obediently put up the umbrella she had lent him, overcoming his objections by pointing out that it would keep Nellie's hat from being spoiled. Then George's oars began to dip into the water, and they turned their backs to the pleasant home and faced out into the wind and wet.

The last sound that came to them was a long melodious cry that Josie sent across the water to George, a loving "Good-bye!" that plainly meant "Come back!"

CHAPTER IX.

"THIS IS SOCIALISM!"

The working of George's oars and the rippling of water on the bow were all that broke the silence as the skiff moved across the harbour.

Suddenly Ned lost sight of the swinging lantern that Josie had held at the little landing stairs and without it could not distinguish the house they had left. Here and there behind them were lights of various kinds and sizes, shining blurred through the faint drizzle. He saw similar lights in front and on either hand. Yet the darkness was so deep now that but for the lantern on the fore thwarts he could not have seen George at all.

There were no sounds but those of their rowing.

Nellie sat erect, half hidden in the umbrella Ned held over her. George pulled a long sweeping stroke, bringing it up with a jerk that made the rowlocks sound sharply. When he bent back they could feel the light boat lift under them. He looked round now and then, steering himself by some means inscrutable to the others, who without him would have been lost on this watery waste.

All at once George stopped rowing. "Listen!" he exclaimed.

There was a swishing sound as of some great body rushing swiftly through the water near them. It ceased suddenly; then as suddenly sounded again.

"Sharks about," remarked George, in a matter-of-fact tone, rowing again with the same long sweeping stroke as before.

Nellie did not stir. She was used to such incidents, evidently. But Ned had never before been so close to the sea-tigers and felt a creepy sensation. He would much rather, he thought, be thirty-five miles from water with a lame horse than in the company of sharks on a dark wet night in the middle of Sydney harbour.

"Are they dangerous?" he asked, with an attempt at being indifferent.

"I Suppose so," answered George, in a casual way. "If one of them happened to strike the boat it might be unpleasant. But they're terrible cowards."

"Are there many?"

"In the harbour? Oh, yes, it swarms with them. You see that light," and George pointed to the left, where one of the lights had detached itself from the rest and shone close at hand. "That's on a little island and in the convict days hard cases were put on it--I think it was on that island or one like it--and the sharks saw that none of them swam ash.o.r.e."

"They seem to have used those convicts pretty rough," remarked Ned.