The Record of Nicholas Freydon Part 5

'Don't forget what I said, Nick; and do it--exactly, old fellow. And now, let us forget all about it. That gruel, or whatever it was you gave me just now, has made me feel so comfortable that I'm going to have a beautiful sleep, and wake up as fit as a fiddle to-morrow. Give me your hand, boy. There--good-night! G.o.d bless you!'

He turned on his shoulder, perhaps to avoid seeing my tears, and again, perhaps, I have thought, to avoid my seeing the coming of tears in his own eyes. He had kissed my forehead, and I could not remember ever being kissed by him before. For, as long as my memory carried me, our habit had been to shake hands, like two men....

I find an unexpected difficulty in setting down the details of an experience which, upon the whole, produced a deeper impression on me, I think, than any other event in my life. When all is said, can any useful purpose be served by observing at this stage of my task a particularity which would be exceedingly depressing to me? I think not. There is a.s.suredly no need for me, of all people, to court melancholy. I think that, without great fullness at this point in my record, I can gauge pretty accurately the value as a factor in my growth of this particular experience, and so I will be very brief.

On the fifth evening after that of the attack which left him unconscious on the saloon deck, my father died, very peacefully, and, I believe, quite painlessly. He spoke to me, and with a smile, only a few minutes before he drew his last breath.

'I'm going, Nick--going--to rest, boy. Don't cry, Nick. Best son....

G.o.d bless....'

Those were the last words he spoke. For two hours or more before that time, he had lain with eyes closed, breathing lightly, perhaps asleep, certainly unconscious. Now he was dead. I was under no sort of illusion about that. Something which had been hanging cold as ice over my heart all day had fallen now, like an axe-blade, and split my heart in twain. So I felt. There was the gentle suggestion of a smile still about the dead lips, but something terrible had happened to my father's eyes. I know now that mere muscular contraction was accountable for this, and not, as it seemed, sudden terror or pain.

But the effect of that contraction upon my lonely mind! ...

Well, I had two things to do, and with teeth set hard in my lower lip I set to work to do them. With shaking hands I closed my father's eyelids and drew the sheet over his face. Then I took the two letters from the shelf and thrust them in the breast of my s.h.i.+rt.

Walking stiffly--it seemed to me very necessary that I should keep all my muscles quite rigid--I left the s.h.i.+p, harnessed Jerry, and drove off into the darkling bush towards Werrina. The sun had disappeared before I left my father's side, and the track to Werrina was fifteen miles long. A strange drive, and a queer little numbed driver, creaking along through the ghostly bush, exactly as a somnambulist might, the most of his faculties in abeyance. Three words kept shaping themselves in my mind, I know, and then fading out again, like shadows. They never were spoken. My lips did not move, I think, all through the long, slow night drive. The three words were:

'Father is dead.'

YOUTH--AUSTRALIA

I

We wore no uniform at St. Peter's Orphanage, but there were plenty of other reminders to keep us conscious that we were inmates of an inst.i.tution, and what is called a charitable inst.i.tution at that. At all events I, personally, was reminded of it often enough; but I would not say that the majority of the boys thought much of the point. My upbringing, so far, had not been a good training for inst.i.tutional life. And then, again, my ignorance of the Roman Catholic religion was complete. I had not been particularly well posted perhaps regarding the church of my fathers--the Church of England; but I had never set foot in a Roman Catholic place of wors.h.i.+p, nor set eyes upon an image of the Virgin. Occasionally, my father had gone with me to church in London; but, as a rule, the companion of my devotions had been a servant. And in Australia neither my father nor I had visited any church.

I gathered gradually that my father had once met and chatted with Father O'Malley for a few minutes in Werrina, learning in that time of the reverend father's supervisory connection with St. Peter's Orphanage at Myall Creek, eleven miles down the coast. It is easy now to understand how, pondering sadly over the question of what should become of me when 'anything happened' to him, my father had seized upon the idea of this Orphanage, the only inst.i.tute of its kind within a hundred miles. He had never seen the place, and knew nothing of it.

But what choice had he?

And so I became a duly registered orphan, and an inmate of St.

Peter's. The letter I took to Father O'Malley contained, in bank-notes, all the money of which my father died possessed. To this day I do not know what the amount was, save that it was more than one hundred pounds, and, almost certainly, under three hundred pounds. The letter made a gift of this money to the Orphanage, I believe, on the understanding that the Orphanage took me in and cared for me. It also, I understood, authorised Father O'Malley to sell for the benefit of the Orphanage all my father's belongings on board the _Livorno_, with the exception of the books and papers, which were to be held in trust for me, and handed over to me when I left the inst.i.tution. Knowing n.o.body in the district, I do not see that my father could with advantage have taken any other course than the one he chose; and I am very sure that he believed he was doing the best that could be done for me in the circ.u.mstances.

Like every other habitation in that countryside, the Orphanage was a wooden structure: hardwood weatherboard walls and galvanised iron roof. But, unlike a good many others, it was well and truly built, with a view to long life. It stood three feet above the ground upon piers of stone, each of which had a mushroom-shaped cap of iron, to check, as far as might be, the onslaught of the white ant, that destructive pest of coastal Australia and enemy of all who live in wooden houses. Also, it was kept well painted, and cared for in every way, as few buildings in that district were. In Australia generally, even in those days, labour was a somewhat costly commodity. At the Orphanage it was the one thing used without stint, for it cost nothing at all.

As I was being driven to the Orphanage in Father O'Malley's sulky, behind his famous trotting mare Jinny, I hazarded upon a note of interrogation the remark that my father would be buried.

'Surely, surely, my boy; I expect he will be buried at Werrina to-morrow.'

This was on the morning after my delivery of the letters in Werrina. I had spent the night in Father O'Malley's house. Somehow, I conveyed the suggestion that I wanted to attend that burying. The priest nodded amiably.

'Aye,' he said; 'we'll see about it, we'll see about it, presently.

But just now you're going to a beautiful house at Myall Creek--St.

Peter's. And, if ye're a real good lad, ye'll be let stay there, an'

get a fine education, an' all--if ye're a good lad. Y'r poor father asked this for ye, like a wise man; and if we can get ut for ye, the sisters will make a man of ye in no time--if ye're a good lad.'

'Yes, sir,' I replied meekly; and, so far as I remember, spake no other word while seated in that swiftly drawn sulky. I learned afterwards that the reverend father was not only a good judge of horse-flesh, but a famous hand at a horse deal, just as he was a notably shrewd man of business, and good at a bargain of any kind. So I fancy was every one connected with the Orphanage.

I did not, as a fact, attend my father's funeral, nor was I ever again as far from Myall Creek as Werrina during the whole of my term at the Orphanage.

There were fifty-nine 'inmates,' as distinguished from other residents there, when my name was entered on the books of St. Peter's Orphanage.

So I brought the ranks of the orphans up to sixty. The whole inst.i.tution was managed by a Sister-in-charge and three other sisters: Sister Agatha, Sister Mary, and Sister Catharine. No doubt the Sister-in-charge had a name, but one never heard it. She was always spoken of as 'Sister-in-charge.' There was no male member of the staff except Tim the boatman; and he was hardly like a man, in the ordinary worldly sense, since he was an old orphan, and had been brought up at St.

Peter's. He played an important part in the life of the place, because, in a way, he and his punt formed the bridge connecting us with the rest of the world.

St. Peter's stood on a small island, under three hundred acres in area, at the mouth of the Myall Creek, where that stream opens into the arm of the sea called Burke Water. Our landing-stage was, I suppose, a couple of hundred yards from the Myall Creek wharf--the 'Crick Wharf,' as it was always called; and it was Tim's job to bridge that gulf by means of the punt, which he navigated with an oar pa.s.sed through a hole in its flat stern. The punt was roomy, but a c.u.mbersome craft.

The orphans ranged in age all the way from about three years on to the twenties. Alf Loddon was twenty-six, I believe; but he, though strong, and a useful hand at the plough, or with an axe, or in the shafts of one of our small carts, was undoubtedly half-witted. We had several big fellows whose chins cried aloud for the application of razors. And none of us was idle. Even little five-year-olds, like Teddy Reeves, gathered and carried kindling wood, and weeded the garden; while boys of my own age were old and experienced farm hands, and had adopted the heavy, lurching stride of the farm labourer.

I suppose there never was a 'charitable' inst.i.tution conducted more emphatically upon business lines than was St. Peter's Orphanage. The establishment included a dairy farm, a poultry farm, and a market garden. Indeed, at that period, so far as the production of vegetables went, we had no white compet.i.tors within fifty or a hundred miles, I think. As in many other parts of Australia, the inhabitants of this countryside regarded any form of market gardening as Chinaman's work, pure and simple. There were any number of settlers then who never tasted vegetables from one year's end to another, though the ground about their houses would have grown every green thing known to culinary art. In the towns.h.i.+ps, too, n.o.body would 'be bothered'

growing vegetables; but, unlike many of the 'c.o.c.katoo' farmers, the town people were ready enough to buy green things; and therein lay our opportunity. We rarely ate vegetables at St. Peter's, but we cultivated them a.s.siduously; and sixpence and eightpence were quite ordinary prices for our cabbages to fetch.

So, too, with dairy products. We 'inmates' saw very little of b.u.t.ter at table, treacle being our great standby. (The sisters had b.u.t.ter, of course.) But St. Peter's b.u.t.ter stamped 'S.P.O.' was famous in the district, and esteemed, as it was priced, highly. Exactly the same might be said (both as regards our share of these commodities and the public appreciation of them) of the eggs and milk produced at St.

Peter's. Save in the way of occasional pilferings I never tasted milk at St. Peter's; but between us, the members of the milking gang, of which I was at one time chief, milked twenty-nine cows, morning and evening. I have heard Jim Meagher, the chief poultry boy, boast of a single day's gathering of four hundred and sixty-eight eggs; but eggs, save when stolen, p.r.i.c.ked, and sucked raw, never figured in our bill of fare. At first glance this might appear unbusinesslike, but the prices obtainable for these things were good, as they still are and always have been in Australia; and the various items of our dietary--treacle, bread, oatmeal, tea, and corned beef--could of course be bought much more cheaply.

Father O'Malley did most of the purchasing for the Orphanage, and audited its accounts, I believe. Sister Catharine and the Sister-in-charge, between them, did all the collecting throughout the countryside for the Orphanage funds. And I have heard it said they were singularly adept in this work. I have heard a Myall Creek farmer tell how the sisters 'fairly got over' him, though, as he told the story, it seemed to me that in this particular case he had been the victor. They were selling tickets at the time for a 'social' in aid of the Orphanage funds. The farmer flatly refused to purchase, saying he could not attend the function.

'Ah, well, but ye'll buy a ticket, Misther Jones; sure ye will now, f'r the Orphanage.' But Mr. Jones was obdurate. Well, then, he would give a few pounds of tea and sugar? But he was right out of both commodities. Some of his fine eggs, or, maybe, a young pig? Mr. Jones continued in his obduracy. He was a poor man, he said, and could not afford to give.

'May we pick a basket av y'r beautiful oranges thin, Misther Jones?'

They might not, for he had sold them on the trees.

'Ah, well, can ye let us have a whip, just a common whip, Misther Jones, for we've come out without one, an' the horse is gettin' old, an' needs persuasion.' Mr. Jones would not give a whip, as he had but the one.

'Ah, thin, just a loan of it, Misther Jones, till this evening?' No, the farmer wanted to use the whip himself.

'Well, well, thin, Misther Jones, I see we'll have to be gettin'

along; so I'll wish ye good-morning--if ye'll just let us have a cup o' milk each, for 'tis powerful warm this morning, an' I'm thirsty.'

At this the farmer forgot his manners, in his wrath, and said explosively:

'The milk's all settin', an' the water tank's near empty, so I'll wish ye good-morning, _anyhow_, mum!' And this valiant man moved to the door.

But I am well a.s.sured that such a defeat was a rare thing in the sisters' experience. Indeed, Mr. Jones made it his boast that he was the only man in that district--'Prodesdun or Papish'--who ever received a visit from the Orphanage sisters without paying for it. On the other hand, it was very generally admitted that no farm in that countryside was more profitable than ours; and that no one turned out products of higher quality, or obtained better prices. These smaller rural industries--dairying, market gardening, and the like--demand much labour of a more or less unskilled and mechanical sort, but do not provide returns justifying the payment of high wages. In this regard St. Peter's was, of course, ideally situated. It paid no wages, and employed twenty pairs of hands for every one pair employed by the average producer in the district.

II

Looking back now upon the period I spent as an 'inmate' of St. Peter's Orphanage, it seems a queer unreal interlude enough; possessing some of the qualities of a dream, including brevity and detachment from the rest of my life. But well I know that in the living there was nothing in the least dream-like about it; and, so far from being brief, I know there were times when it seemed that all the rest of my life had been but a day or so, by comparison with the grey, interminable vista of the St. Peter's period.

It appears to me now as something rather wonderful that I ever should have been able to win clear of St. Peter's to anything else; at all events, to anything so unlike St. Peter's as the most of my life has been. How was it I did not eventually succeed Tim, the punt-man, or become the hind of one or other of the small farmers about the district, as did most of the Orphanage lads? The scope life offered to the orphans of St. Peter's was something easily to be taken in by the naked eye from Myall Creek. It embraced only the simplest kind of labouring occupations, and included no faintest hint of London, or of the great kaleidoscopic world lying between Australia and England; no sort of suggestion of the infinitely changeful and various thing that life has been for me.

It is certain that I cherish no sort of resentment or malice where the Orphanage and its sisters are concerned. But neither will I pretend to have the slightest feeling of grat.i.tude or benevolence towards them. I should not wish to contribute to their funds, though I possessed all the wealth of the Americas. And I will say that I think those responsible for the conduct of the place were singularly indifferent, or blind, to the immense opportunities for productive well-doing which lay at their feet.

Here were sixty orphans; lads for the most part plastic as clay. The sisters were the potters. No ruling sovereign possesses a t.i.the of the absolute authority that was theirs. They literally held the powers of life and death. Unquestioned and G.o.d-like they moved serenely to and fro about the island farm, in their floating black draperies, directing the daily lives of their subjects by means of a nod, a gesture of the hand, a curt word here or there. They were the only G.o.ds we had. (There was nothing to make us think of them as G.o.ddesses.) And, so blind were they to their opportunities, they offered us nothing better. By which, I do not mean that our chapel was neglected. (It was not, though I do not think it meant much more for any of us than the milking, the wood-chopping, or the window-cleaning.) But, rather, that these capable, energetic women entirely ignored their unique opportunities of uplifting us. It was an appalling waste of G.o.d-like powers.