Bunyip Land

Bunyip Land
a Story of Adventure in New Guinea
by George Manville Fenn.
CHAPTER ONE.
HOW I MADE MY PLANS AND THEY WERE ENDORSED.
"Now, Master Joseph, do adone now, do. I'm sure your poor dear
eyes'll go afore you're forty, and think of that!"
"Bother!"
"What say, my dear?"
"Don't bother."
"You're always running your finger over that map thing, my dear. I
can't abear to see it."
Nurse Brown looked over the top of her spectacles at me and shook her
head, while I bent lower over the map.
Then the old lady sighed, and went on making cottage windows all
over my worsted stockings, giving vent to comments all the time, for
the old lady had been servant to my grandmother, and had followed her
young mistress when she married, nursing me when I was born, and
treating me as a baby ever since. In fact she had grown into an
institution at home, moving when we moved, and doing pretty well as
she liked in what she called "our house."
"Bang!"
"Bless the boy! don't bang the table like that," she cried. "How you

made me jump!"
"It's of no use talking, nurse," I cried; "I mean to go."
"Go!" she said. "Go where?"
"Go and find my poor dear father," I cried. "Why, nurse, am I to sit
down quietly at home here, when perhaps my poor father is waiting for
me to come to his help?"
"Oh, hush! my dearie; don't talk like that I'm afraid he's dead and
gone."
"He isn't, nurse," I cried fiercely. "He's a prisoner somewhere among
those New Guinea savages, and I mean to find him and bring him
back."
Nurse Brown thrust her needle into the big round ball of worsted, and
held it up as if for me to see. Then she took off her glasses with the left
hand in the stocking, and shaking her head she exclaimed:
"Oh, you bad boy; wasn't it enough for your father to go mad after his
botaniky, and want to go collecting furren buttercups and daisies, to
break your mother's heart, that you must ketch his complaint and want
to go too?"
"My father isn't mad," I said.
"Your father was mad," retorted Nurse Brown, "and I was surprised at
him. What did he ever get by going wandering about collecting his dry
orchardses and rubbish, and sending of 'em to England?"
"Fame," I cried, "and honour."
"Fame and honour never bought potatoes," said nurse.
"Why, four different plants were named after him."
"Oh, stuff and rubbish, boy! What's the good of that when a man gets

lost and starves to death in the furren wilds!"
"My father was too clever a man to get lost or to starve in the wilds," I
said proudly. "The savages have made him a prisoner, and I'm going to
find him and bring him back."
"Ah! you've gone wandering about with that dirty black till you've quite
got into his ways."
"Jimmy isn't dirty," I said; "and he can't help being black any more than
you can being white."
"I wonder at a well-brought-up young gent like you bemeaning yourself
to associate with such a low creature, Master Joseph."
"Jimmy's a native gentleman, nurse," I said.
"Gentleman, indeed!" cried the old lady, "as goes about without a bit of
decent clothes to his back."
"So did Adam, nursey," I said laughing.
"Master Joseph, I won't sit here and listen to you if you talk like that,"
cried the old lady; "a-comparing that black savage to Adam! You ought
to be ashamed of yourself. It all comes of living in this horrible place. I
wish we were back at Putney."
"Hang Putney!" I cried. "Putney, indeed! where you couldn't go half a
yard off a road without trespassing. Oh, nurse, you can't understand it,"
I cried enthusiastically; "if you were to get up in the dark one morning
and go with Jimmy--"
"Me go with Jimmy!" cried the old lady with a snort.
"And get right out towards the mountain and see the sunrise, and the
parrots in flocks, and the fish glancing like arrows down the silver
river--"
"There's just how your poor dear pa used to talk, and nearly broke your

poor ma's heart."
"No, he didn't; he was too fond of her," I said; "only he felt it his duty
to continue his researches, the same that brought him out here, and--oh,
I shall find him and bring him back."
"Don't, don't, don't! there's a good boy; don't talk to me like that. You're
sixteen now, and you ought to know better."
"I don't want to know any better than that, nurse. I know it's my duty to
go, and I shall go."
"You'll kill your poor ma, sir."
"No, I sha'n't," I