CHAPTER III.

DICK GOES TO SEA.

All was bustle and hurry aboard the steamer. Cargo was still being loaded; the creak and rattle of the great crane, as it swung back and forth, the crash of cases, dumped into the yawning mouth of the hold, mingled with the confusion of arriving passengers and the shouts of sailors and dock hands. On the decks people were hurrying about, seeking stewards and cabins, and the doorways were blocked with little groups saying good-bye. Overhead a harsh whistle shrilled out--so suddenly that everyone jumped, and horses on the wharf danced nervously. Someone in uniform shouted:

"Everyone for the shore!"

Good-byes filled the air. Women hurried towards the gangway, as if fearful of being carried off to the "wild and woolly West," followed more slowly by those more experienced. Passengers hastened up from the wharf; cab drivers, trotting in leisurely, whipped up their horses in response to nervous appeals from their anxious fares. The big crane went on, creaking and swinging, dumping in its cases as though there were no such item on the ship's programme as starting.

Dick watched the late arrivals curiously. Men formed the greater number; there were smart and brisk commercial travellers, and others, less prosperous, evidently off to seek their fortune in that West which, to much of the rest of Australia, is still an unknown land. Tearful wives and children hung about the necks of some of these, saying the last hard good-byes; but in some cases the wives and children were coming too, and they trooped on board, shabby little flocks, with the tired mothers trying to keep the stragglers together.

The whistle sounded again, and there was a second summons, a peremptory one this time, for strangers to leave the ship. They hurried down the gangway, and then the great ladder was hauled up the ship's side, the deck-railing swung in across the gap, and in a few moments the _Moondarra_ began to back slowly from the wharf. The people below grew smaller, their upturned faces white dots in the evening gloom. From everywhere came shouts of "Good-bye." A young bride, off to the West with a huge, bronzed bushman, leaned over the side, holding the ends of long streamers of ribbon, of which the other ends were held by her friends on shore. Her face was happy and yet tearful; she looked wistfully towards Adelaide. The ribbons lengthened out, gradually tightened as the ship drew further away, and finally, released by the people on the wharf, sprang in the air. The girl gathered them up to her quickly, a gay, fluttering bundle, and Dick heard her give a little sob.

Just as the ship gathered way, they saw a motor suddenly turn in to the wharf from the street, hooting as it came. Mrs. Lester peered at it through the gloom.

"Isn't that Billy's car?" she said.

"My word, yes!" Dick cried. "He's standing up and trying to see us. I wonder what he wants."

"Oh--he has remembered something he didn't tell us; and of course, it's just like Billy to come racing back," Mrs. Lester said, laughing. "At all events, he is too late." She waved her handkerchief towards the car, though she knew that it would be impossible to distinguish anyone in the long row of passengers crowding to look over the ship's rail. "There--he has given it up as a bad job."

They saw Billy sit down again, after waving his hat in a kind of general salutation towards the ship. Then the car turned slowly, and slipped away. The dusk swallowed it up.

Somewhere near them a bugle blared, so suddenly, that everyone jumped. The bugler, a very fat steward, finished a long trill carefully, and then moved off to repeat the performance elsewhere. Someone hailed him.

"What's that for, steward?"

"Dressing bugle, sir," responded the fat player, stolidly. "Dinner in half an hour, sir."

There was a general move from the deck. Dick and his mother found themselves in a crowd going down the first staircase. Dick was too much of a landsman yet to call it a companion. At the foot they encountered another steward, who directed them to their cabins, along an alley-way; Dick's was opposite his mother's. It was a two-berth cabin, and he found that he was not the only occupant---indeed, so big was his fellow passenger that it seemed unlikely that there would be any room for Dick at all. He paused uncertainly, just inside the doorway.

An enormous man, who was unstrapping a leather suit-case, swung round suddenly.

"Hullo, youngster," he said. "Do you belong in here?"

"Well--the steward said so," Dick answered with some uncertainty.

"Then you probably do," said the big man. "What's your number, sonny? Thirty-seven? Yes, that's your bunk. Got anyone with you?"

"My mother," Dick nodded. "She's in the opposite cabin."

"I see. And I've a wife and small son and daughter somewhere about. Well, there's not a whole heap of room in these cabins, so it's luck for me that I haven't struck a mate of my own size. But I expect you don't look at it in that way."

Dick grinned. He rather liked this big, friendly person, but was much too shy to talk. Indeed, it was rather dreadful to think of sharing a cabin with him--with any stranger, for that matter.

"We won't worry each other very much," said his companion, as if guessing his thoughts. "You'll be asleep long before I come to bed, and I'm not as early as I might be in the mornings." He was unpacking swiftly, distributing his belongings in shelves and on hooks. "I'll leave space for you--those drawers are handy for your height, so I'll take the upper ones. I see you've got the berth with the porthole--lucky kid."

"I'll change, if you like," Dick said. It seemed the only thing to say, but he didn't feel a cheerful giver. The little round window just over his bed looked very inviting.

The big man laughed.

"Oh, not much!" he said. "Thanks, all the same, sonny, but I wouldn't take it from you. Now, I'm pretty straight, so I'll clear out, for it's quite evident that we can't move about together. So long." Dick squeezed himself against his bunk to leave room for the great form as he moved to the door.

His mother was a little inclined to be sympathetic on the subject a little later.

"Oh, he might be worse," Dick said. "He's really quite a good sort. And we shan't see so much of each other in the cabin, 'cause I'm going to get up awfully early. You see, I don't want to waste a single minute of my time on board ship."

"Well, you could nearly always take refuge in here if you were very crowded," Mrs. Lester said.

"Thanks very much, mummie." Dick glanced round her cabin; it was the same size as his own, but looked, somehow, immeasurably larger. The second bunk was not made up, and looked inviting as a sofa. Already his mother had unpacked, and her dainty belongings made the tiny place homelike. "It is jolly, isn't it?" the small boy said.

"Yes, it's quite comfy. We'll use it together as a sitting-room, Dickie. There's the bugle for dinner--come along."

There were many people in the long alley-way, hurrying towards the dining saloon. Smooth water was certain for the first few hours of the journey while they steamed down the Gulf. What sort of weather might await them when they turned into the Bight--that place of many storms--no one could say. Therefore, there was a general determination to have at least one meal in comfort. People trooped up from their cabins and down from the deck, crowding into the big saloon. The stewards were busy directing all to their places, and delicately shepherding new-comers from seats already reserved.

Mrs. Lester and Dick found themselves at a table presided over by the ship's doctor, who promptly made himself known to all the passengers, found out their names and saw to it that all under his wing felt at home. He was a plump, cheery man, full of anecdotes and chatter. Dick felt that it would be jolly to sit at his table. Opposite the Lesters were four vacant places. Already at the table were a thin and angular lady, whose name they found out was Miss Simpson; a very pretty girl of eighteen, with her mother, a Mrs. Merritt, and a tall, silent man, Mr. Dunstan, who looked as though he hailed from the bush, and made but the briefest of responses to the doctor's jokes.

Close at hand was the captain's table, where, as the doctor remarked, "Emperors and pontiffs" might be found. There were no emperors aboard this time; the nearest approach to a pontiff was an English bishop, who, with his wife, was touring Australia. He was a pink and pleasant person, who rather gave the impression that he was curate to his wife--a very tall woman, stout, dignified and extremely English. Dick rejoiced inwardly that he did not sit near this dignitary. He went as far as to feel sympathy for the captain himself, who made heavy weather in his efforts to entertain her, and used to look slightly exhausted towards the close of a meal. A famous singer--a tall, handsome woman--was also at his table; and a noted actor, whom the bishop's wife snubbed whenever possible. There was a chief justice from an eastern state, he had a keen, clever face, at which Dick liked to look when he spoke. The other people included a ship's captain going to take command of a vessel at Fremantle; a member of Parliament and his wife, a Riverina squatter, a German wool buyer and one or two others less distinguished. Dick eyed them with awe, and was glad that he sat at another table.

Just as the soup appeared, a quiet-looking young man slipped into one of the vacant seats at the doctor's left; and presently a party of three arrived to complete the table--Dick's enormous cabin mate, with his wife and little girl. They sat down opposite, and immediately the little girl made a face at Dick.

Now, Dick did not know much of the ways of girls, little or big. He was thirteen, and at thirteen girls are the last things a boy worries about. Therefore, this pleasantry on the part of the new-comer merely puzzled him slightly. He wrinkled his nose a little and went on with his soup.

The doctor was greeting them boisterously.

"Good evening, Mrs. Warner. Had a good run round Adelaide?"

"Oh, delightful," said the lady vaguely. Her husband laughed.

"Much she knows of Adelaide," he said. "She's been to a tea-party at the club, and Merle and I have been running round like good tourists. Haven't we, Merle?"

The little girl muttered something that sounded like "Horrid place!" and again Mr. Warner laughed.

"Merle is in the stage of disliking everything outside her own boundary fence," he said, attacking his dinner. "I've shown her all the beauties of Eastern Australia, and she still says there's no place like the sandy west, so we'll go back for another ten years or so before coming this side again." His eye fell on Dick, and he nodded in a friendly way. "Why, there's my cabin mate," he said. "I say, doctor, don't you think it's a trifle hard on a boy of that size to find he has drawn me in the lucky bag?"

"Distinctly," agreed the doctor, "but great luck for you." He made the Warners and Lesters known to each other, and the elders chatted through dinner. Merle, after another grimace at Dick, did not look his way again, for which he was mildly thankful. He decided that she was a cheeky kid, and thought no more about her--save that whenever he chanced to look across he saw the square little face, surrounded by a shock of dark hair and crowned with an enormous butterfly bow of black ribbon.

The Warners, it seemed, were station owners north of Coolgardie, and they were returning from a trip east.

"Our first for over twelve years," Mrs. Warner said. "We had a run over just after we were married."

"And we've never had any time since," ejaculated Mr. Warner.

"No, what with babies and hard work," Mrs. Warner's face saddened. Later, Mrs. Lester learned that two of the babies had failed to pull through a very bad summer. They had begun with a very little place, but gradually luck had come their way, and now they owned a big run.

"Thanks to our being willing to go out-back," said Mr. Warner. "People nowadays forget what the first settlers did--our grandparents, who went cheerfully out into the wilds and thought themselves lucky if they got a mail and stores twice a year. There's any amount of room yet for men and women with pluck enough to go into the back-country. But most of them nowadays want a place two minutes from a township, with a post office and a picture theatre round the corner. It makes me tired."

"Are you far out?" Mrs. Lester asked.

"Oh, not so far. Now that we have a car we get a mail once a fortnight, and that has made us feel very civilised. We used to have trouble with the blacks, but they're tame enough now."

"It was lonely enough at times," Mrs. Warner said. "One used to long to see another white woman. But now that the children are bigger things are better."

"Your little girl is old enough to be a companion to you now," Mrs. Lester said, smiling at Merle, who merely scowled.

"More of a companion to me, I'm afraid," said Mr. Warner, laughing. "Merle isn't a domesticated person; she thinks horses and dogs are the only real things that matter."

"So they are," said Merle, suddenly, in a kind of small explosion. Everyone laughed and she flushed to the roots of her black hair.

"Oh, Merle will become domesticated soon enough--she isn't twelve yet," her mother said, comfortably. "She is to have a governess when we get back."

"I pity the poor governess who is to teach Merle all the useful domestic arts," said Mr. Warner. "She will have an uphill game."

The angular lady, Miss Simpson, spoke suddenly.

"Do you not think," she asked, "that the tuition of the useful arts should begin at a very much earlier age?" Her voice, like herself, was angular; she glared at Merle, who returned the glare with interest. "Much more was expected of little girls when I was young."

Mr. Warner gave one of his great laughs.

"Oh, much more, I'm sure," he said. "But surroundings count for something; perhaps you weren't brought up on a lonely run, where your only playmates were horses and dogs."

"Certainly not," said Miss Simpson. "I was brought up in London. And in my day young ladies learned decorum."

"What's decorum?" asked Merle bluntly.

"Something you haven't got, my little savage," said her father.

"Well, what is it, anyhow?"

"Decorum is refined and ladylike behaviour," said Miss Simpson severely.

"Must be beastly," said Merle and went on with her dinner.

"That's enough, Merle," said her father, looking annoyed. He turned back to the thin lady.

"Life in London has not many of the problems that beset small Australians," he said. "Merle found a cow bogged in a swamp once. I was away, so she had to gallop in to the homestead, collect a few rubbishy blacks, the only men about, and get them on to the job of rescue. I believe she had to wade in herself and hold up the poor brute's head while they tugged her out. Of course, it was only a very ordinary thing for a bush-bred child; no particular credit to Merle. But it wouldn't have fitted in with your ideal of decorum, would it?"

"Most certainly not," said the angular lady. "It seems a fearful thing for a little girl to do."

"But it saved the cow."

"Then you place a cow before your daughter's welfare?"

"It never did me any harm," said Merle, fiercely. "And a cow's a cow!"

Mr. Warner's crack of laughter made heads turn in his direction.

"Beyond doubt a cow is a cow," he said. "We rank 'em high out back. Seriously, Miss Simpson, you wouldn't see an animal choke to death rather than upset decorum, would you?

"I am glad that such incidents have not come my way," said the spinster, vinegarishly. "I cannot but think a little girl would be better at a good boarding school than exposed to influences of the kind you describe. What, may I ask, will be your daughter's future?"

"Oh, she'll be pretty useful, I hope," said the squatter, cheerfully. "There, Merle, go on with your pudding," for the subject of the discussion showed imminent signs of bursting with wrath. "We'll take you in hand yet and make a young lady of you. All the same, I'll be disgusted if you ever turn your back on a cow in a bog!"

The silent young man spoke.

"I reckon," he said in a slow drawl, "that some of our old hands would have been in a bit of a hole if their womenfolk hadn't been willin' to lend a hand outside. My old grandmother talked half a dozen languages, and played three or four instruments, and sang in Italian and painted on satin, and all that sort of thing, and before she came out from England she'd never so much as made a bed. Then she came to Sydney with her father's regiment, and married and went up into the Never-Never country. After that there wasn't anything she didn't do, from fightin' blacks and bush fires and floods to helpin' clear the land and build the house. Did it all well too. Didn't hurt her, either, she said; she liked it. Great old sort. Lots like her, of course. Reckon they made Australia."

"Yes, and we're proud of 'em," said Mr. Warner. He grinned. "But what about their decorum, Miss Simpson?"

"I think the dear bishop is rising," said the spinster, acidly. "If you will excuse me----" She left the table in the wake of the "pontiffs."

"All the same," said Mr. Warner, when the laugh had subsided, "it isn't quite the same thing. Those old grandmothers of ours had decorum--stacks of it. They never lost it, even when they did a man's work. I suppose it was because they had so much of it ground into them when they were young. And it never did them any harm. But somehow nowadays it doesn't seem an easy matter to put on the decorum layer first. I don't know how it is." He looked across the table. "Got any little girls, Mrs. Lester?"

"No, only one bad boy," replied Dick's mother.

"Just as well for your peace of mind. Girls are a great responsibility, especially when they persist in thinking they're boys." He tweaked his small daughter's hair. "Finished? Then suppose we go up on deck, and you can make friends with my cabin mate."

But Merle looked across at Dick scornfully.

"I'm going to see the engines," she said, with her nose tilted. "The chief engineer said he'd take me, an' mother said I could."

"Oh, all right," said her father, easily. "You can make friends with Dick to-morrow." To which Dick, smarting under the double injury of her scorn and the fact that she--a scrap of a girl--was about to revel in the engine room, for which his whole soul hankered, registered a vow that he'd see her farther first. His nose was as tilted as Merle's own as he passed her on his way to the deck.