Bunyip Land.

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 inst.i.tution 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 gla.s.ses 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 b.u.t.tercups 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 a.s.sociate 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 trespa.s.sing. 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 said. "She won't like my going at first, because it will seem lonely for her out here; but she'll be as pleased as can be afterwards. Look here: my mother--"

"Say _ma_, Master Joe, dear. Doey, please; it's so much more genteel."

"Stuff! it's Frenchy; mother's old English. Mother don't believe father's dead, does she?"

"Well, no, my dear; she's as obstinate as you are about that."

"And she's right. Why, he's only been away four years, and that isn't so very long in a country where you have to cut every step of the way."

"Cooey--cooey--woo--woo--woo--woo--why yup!"

"Cooey--cooey!" I echoed back, and nurse held he hands to her ears.