Bunyip Land | Page 6

of how we were to get to the great northern island, for as a rule facilities for touching there were not very great; but somehow this proved to be no difficulty, all that we undertook being easily mastered, every obstacle melting away at the first attack. In fact the journey to New Guinea was like a walk into a trap--wonderfully easy. The difficulty was how to get out again.
Perhaps had I known of the dangers we were to encounter I might have shrunk from the task--I say might, but I hope I should not. Still it was better that I was in ignorance when, with the doctor, I set about making inquiries at the harbour, and soon found a captain who was in the habit of trading to the island for shells and trepang, which he afterwards took on to Hongkong.
For a fairly liberal consideration he expressed himself willing to go out of his way and land us where we liked, but he shook his head all the same.
"You've cut out your work, youngster," he said; "and I doubt whether you're going to sew it together so as to make a job."
"I'm going to try, captain," I said.
"That's your style," he said heartily, as he gave me a slap on the shoulder. "That's the word that moves everything, my boy--that word `try.' My brains and butter! what a lot `try' has done, and will always keep doing. Lor', it's enough to make a man wish he was lost, and his son coming to look after him."
"Then you have a son, captain?" I said, looking at him wistfully.
"Me? Not a bit of it. My wife never had no little 'uns, for we always buys the boats, they arn't young ships. I married my schooner, my lad; she's my wife. But there, I'm talking away with a tongue like an old woman. Send your traps aboard whenever you like, and--there, I like you--you're a good lad, and I'll help you as much as ever I can. Shake hands."
It was like a fierce order, and he quite hurt me when we did shake hands, even the doctor saying it was like putting your fist in a screw-wrench.
Then we parted, the doctor and I to complete our preparations; the various things we meant to take were placed on board, and now at last the time had come when we must say Good-bye!
For the first time in my life I began to think very seriously of money matters. Up to this money had not been an object of much desire with me. A few shillings to send into Sydney for some special object now and then was all I had required; but now I had to think about my mother during my absence, and what she would do, and for the first time I learned that there was no need for anxiety on that score; that my father's private income was ample to place us beyond thought for the future. I found, too, that our nearest neighbour had undertaken to watch over my mother's safety, not that there was much occasion for watchfulness, the days gliding by at our place in the most perfect peace, but it was satisfactory to feel that there were friends near at hand.
I was for saying good-bye at the little farm, but my mother insisted upon accompanying us to Sydney, where I noticed that in spite of her weakness and delicate looks, she was full of energy and excitement, talking to me of my journey, begging me to be prudent and careful, and on no account to expose myself to danger.
"And tell your father how anxiously I am looking forward to his return," she said to me on the last evening together; words that seemed to give me confidence, for they showed me how thoroughly satisfied she was that we would bring my father back.
We were too busy making preparations to the very last for there to be much time for sadness, till the hour when the old skipper came, and was shown up to our room.
He came stamping and blundering up in a pair of heavy sea-boots, and began to salute me with a rough shout, when he caught sight of my pale delicate-looking mother, and his whole manner changed.
"Lor', I didn't know as there were a lady here," he said in a husky whisper, and snatching off his battered Panama hat, sticking out a leg behind, and making a bow like a school-boy. I beg your pardon for intruding like, mum, but I only come to say that the schooner's warped out, and that youngster here and Mr Grant must come aboard first thing in the morning.
He sat down after a good deal of persuasion, and partook of refreshment--liquid, and copiously. But when, on leaving, my mother followed