The Dingo Boys | Page 2

lady, fervently. "Oh, what a voyage!"
She joined the ladies who had previously come on deck--a tall, grave-looking, refined woman of forty, and two handsome girls of about twenty, both very plainly dressed, but whose costume showed the many little touches of refinement peculiar to a lady.
"Well, Marian, I hope Edward is happy now."
The lady smiled and laid her hand upon Aunt Georgina's arm.
"Of course he is, dear, and so are we all. Safe in port after all those long weeks."
"I don't see much safety," said Aunt Georgie, as she carefully arranged her spectacles, and looked about her. "Bless my heart! what a ramshackle place. Surely this isn't Port Haven."
"Yes; this is Port Haven, good folks," said Captain Bedford, joining them and smiling at the wondering looks of all.
"Then the man who wrote that book, Edward, ought to be hanged."
"What's the matter, aunt?" said Norman, who hurried up with his cousin.
"Matter, my dear? Why, that man writing his rubbish and deluding your poor father into bringing us to this horrible, forsaken-looking place!"
"Forsaken?" cried Captain Bedford, "not at all. We've just come to it. Why, what more do you want? Bright sunshine, a glittering river, waving trees, a glorious atmosphere, and dear old Dame Nature smiling a welcome.--What do you say, Jack?"
The sharp, irritable-looking man had joined them, and his face looked perplexed, the more so as he noted that the girls were watching him, and evidently hanging upon his answer.
"Eh?" he cried; "yes; a welcome, of course. She's glad to see our bonnie lassies fresh from Old England. Here, Ned, give me a cigar."
"Thank you, Jack, old fellow," whispered the captain, as he took out his case. "For Heaven's sake help me to keep up the poor women's spirits. I'm afraid it will be very rough for them at first."
"Rough? Scarifying," said Uncle John Munday, puffing away at his cigar. "No business to have come."
"Jack! And you promised to help me and make the best of things."
"Going to," said Uncle Jack; "but I didn't say I wouldn't pitch into you for dragging us all away from--"
"Bloomsbury Square, my dears," said Aunt Georgie just then. "Yes, if I had known, you would not have made me move from Bloomsbury Square."
"Where you said you should die of asthma, you ungrateful old woman. This climate is glorious."
"Humph!" said Aunt Georgie.
"Well, girls," cried the captain, passing his arms round his daughter and niece's waists, "what do you think of it?"
"Well, papa, I hardly know," said Ida.
"This can't be all of it, uncle?" said the other girl.
"Every bit of it, my pet, at present; but it will grow like a mushroom. Why, there's an hotel already. We had better get ashore, Jack, and secure rooms."
"No," said Uncle Jack, decisively, as he watched a party of rough-looking idlers loafing out of the place, "we'll arrange with the captain to let us stay on board till we go up-country. Rather a shabby lot here, Ned."
"Um! yes," said Captain Bedford, smiling at the appearance of some of the men as they gathered on the wharf.
"Better stay here, I say; the women will be more comfortable. As we are going up the country, the sooner we load up and get off the better. German and I and the boys will camp ashore so as to look after the tackle."
"Yes, and I'll come too."
"No," said Uncle Jack; "your place is with your wife and the girls."
"Perhaps you are right," said the captain, as he stood watching the sailors busily lowering a boat to help to moor the great, tall-masted ship now sitting like a duck on the smooth waters of the river, after months of a stormy voyage from England, when for days the passengers could hardly leave the deck. And as he watched the men, and his eyes wandered inland toward where he could see faint blue mountains beyond dark green forests, he asked himself whether he had done right in realising the wreck of his property left after he had been nearly ruined by the proceedings of a bankrupt company, and making up his mind at fifty to start afresh in the Antipodes, bringing his wife, daughter, and niece out to what must prove to be a very rough life.
"Have I done right?" he said softly; "have I done right?"
"Yes," said a voice close to him; and his brother's hand was laid upon his arm. "Yes, Ned, and we are going to make the best of it."
"You think so, Jack?" said the captain, eagerly.
"Yes. I was dead against it at first."
"You were."
"Horribly. It meant giving up my club--our clubs, and at our time of life working like niggers, plunging into all kinds of discomforts and worries; but, please God, Ned, it's right. It will be a healthy, natural life for us all, and the making of those three boys