You can go across now for one pound, and get something to eat on the road; but the travelling public will go on patronizing the latest reducer of fares until the poorer company gets starved out and fares go up again--then the travelling public will have to pay three or four times as much as they do now, and go hungry on the voyage; all of which ought to go to prove that the travelling public is as big a fool as the general public.

We can't help thinking that the captains and crews of our primitive little coastal steamers take the chances so often that they in time get used to it, and, being used to it, have no longer any misgivings or anxiety in rough weather concerning a watery grave, but feel as perfectly safe as if they were in church with their wives or sisters--only more comfortable--and go on feeling so until the worn-out machinery breaks down and lets the old tub run ash.o.r.e, or knocks a hole in her side, or the side itself rusts through at last and lets the water in, or the last straw in the shape of an extra ton of brine tumbles on board, and the _John Smith (Newcastle)_, goes down with a swoosh before the cook has time to leave off peeling his potatoes and take to prayer.

These cheerful--and, maybe, unjust--reflections are perhaps in consequence of our having lost half a sovereign to start with. We arrived at the booking-office with two minutes to spare, two sticks of Juno tobacco, a spare wooden pipe--in case we lost the other--a letter to a friend's friend down south, a pound note (Bank of New Zealand), and two half-crowns, with which to try our fortunes in the South Island.

We also had a few things in a portmanteau and two blankets in a three-bushel bag, but they didn't amount to much. The clerk put down the ticket with the half-sovereign on top of it, and we wrapped the latter in the former and ran for the wharf. On the way we s.n.a.t.c.hed the ticket out to see the name of the boat we were going by, in order to find it, and it was then, we suppose, that the semi-quid got lost.

Did you ever lose a sovereign or a half-sovereign under similar circ.u.mstances? You think of it casually and feel for it carelessly at first, to be sure that it's there all right; then, after going through your pockets three or four times with rapidly growing uneasiness, you lose your head a little and dredge for that coin hurriedly and with painful anxiety. Then you force yourself to be calm, and proceed to search yourself systematically, in a methodical manner. At this stage, if you have time, it's a good plan to sit down and think out when and where you last had that half-sovereign, and where you have been since, and which way you came from there, and what you took out of your pocket, and where, and whether you might have given it in mistake for sixpence at that pub where you rushed in to have a beer--and then you calculate the chances against getting it back again. The last of these reflections is apt to be painful, and the painfulness is complicated and increased when there happen to have been several pubs and a like number of hurried farewell beers in the recent past.

And for months after that you cannot get rid of the idea that that half-sov. might be about your clothes somewhere. It haunts you. You turn your pockets out, and feel the lining of your coat and vest inch by inch, and examine your letter papers--everything you happen to have had in your pocket that day--over and over again, and by and by you peer in envelopes and unfold papers that you didn't have in your pocket at all, but might have had. And when the novelty of the first search has worn off, and the fit takes you, you make another search. Even after many months have pa.s.sed away, some day--or night--when you are hard up for tobacco and a drink, you suddenly think of that late lamented half-sov., and are moved by adverse circ.u.mstances to look through your old clothes in a sort of forlorn hope, or to give good luck a sort of chance to surprise you--the only chance that you can give it.

By the way, seven-and-six of that half-quid should have gone to the landlord of the hotel where we stayed last, and somehow, in spite of this enlightened age, the loss of it seemed a judgment; and seeing that the boat was old and primitive, and there was every sign of a three days' sou'-easter, we sincerely hoped that judgment was complete--that supreme wrath had been appeased by the fine of ten bob without adding any Jonah business to it.

This reminds us that we once found a lost half-sovereign in the bowl of a spare pipe six months after it was lost. We wish it had stayed there and turned up to-night. But, although when you are in great danger--say, adrift in an open boat--tales of providential escapes and rescues may interest and comfort you, you can't get any comfort out of anecdotes concerning the turning up of lost quids when you have just lost one yourself. All you want is to find it.

It bothers you even not to be able to account for a bob. You always like to know that you have had something for your money, if only a long beer.

You would sooner know that you fooled your money away on a spree, and made yourself sick than lost it out of an extra hole in your pocket, and kept well.

We left Wellington with a feeling of pained regret, a fellow-wanderer by our side telling us how he had once lost "fi-pun-note"--and about two-thirds of the city unemployed on the wharf looking for that half-sovereign. Well, we hope that some poor devil found it; although, to tell the truth, we would then have by far preferred to have found it ourselves.

A sailor said that the _Moa_ was a good sea-boat, and, although she was small and old, _he_ was never afraid of her. He'd sooner travel in her than in some of those big cheap ocean liners with more sand in them than iron or steel--You, know the rest. Further on, in a conversation concerning the age of these coasters, he said that they'd last fully thirty years if well painted and looked after. He said that this one was seldom painted, and never painted properly; and then, seemingly in direct contradiction to his previously expressed confidence in the safety and seaworthiness of the _Moa_, he said that he could poke a stick through her anywhere. We asked him not to do it.

It came on to splash, and we went below to reflect, and search once more for that half-sovereign. The cabin was small and close, and dimly lighted, and evil smelling, and shaped like the b.u.t.t end of a coffin. It might not have smelt so bad if we hadn't lost that half-sovereign. There was a party of those gipsy-like a.s.syrians--two families apparently--the women and children lying very sick about the lower bunks; and a big, good-humoured-looking young Maori propped between the end of the table and the wall, playing a concertina. The sick people were too sick, and the concertina seemed too much in sympathy with them, and the lost half-quid haunted us more than ever down there; so we started to climb out.

The first thing that struck us was the jagged top edge of that iron hood-like arrangement over the gangway. The top half only of the scuttle was open. There was nothing to be seen except a fog of spray and a Newfoundland dog sea-sick under the lee of something. The next thing that struck us was a tub of salt water, which came like a cannon ball and broke against the hood affair, and spattered on deck like a crockery shop. We climbed down again backwards, and sat on the floor with emphasis, in consequence of stepping down a last step that wasn't there, and cracked the back of our heads against the edge of the table. The Maori helped us up, and we had a drink with him at the expense of one of the half-casers mentioned in the beginning of this sketch. Then the Maori shouted, then we, then the Maori again, then we again; and then we thought, "Dash it, what's a half-sovereign? We'll fall on our feet all right."

We went up Queen Charlotte's Sound, a long crooked arm of the sea between big, rugged, black-looking hills. There was a sort of lighthouse down near the entrance, and they said an old Maori woman kept it. There were some whitish things on the sides of the hills, which we at first took for cattle, and then for goats. They were sheep. Someone said that that country was only fit to carry sheep. It must have been bad, then, judging from some of the country in Australia which is only fit to carry sheep. Country that wouldn't carry goats would carry sheep, we think.

Sheep are about the hardiest animals on the face of this planet--barring crocodiles.

You may rip a sheep open whilst watching for the boss's boots or yarning to a pen-mate, and then when you have stuffed the works back into the animal, and put a st.i.tch in the slit, and poked it somewhere with a tar-stick (it doesn't matter much where) the jumbuck will be all right and just as lively as ever, and turn up next shearing without the ghost of a scratch on its skin.

We reached Picton, a small collection of twinkling lights in a dark pocket, apparently at the top of a sound. We climbed up on to the wharf, got through between two railway trucks, and asked a policeman where we were, and where the telegraph office was. There were several pretty girls in the office, laughing and chyacking the counter clerks, which jarred upon the feelings of this poor orphan wanderer in strange lands.

We gloomily took a telegram form, and wired to a friend in North Island, using the following words: "Wire quid; stumped."

Then we crossed the street to a pub and asked for a roof and they told us to go up to No. 8. We went up, struck a match, lit the candle, put our bag in a corner, cleared the looking-gla.s.s off the toilet table, got some paper and a pencil out of our portmanteau, and sat down and wrote this sketch.

The candle is going out.

"SOME DAY"

The two travellers had yarned late in their camp, and the moon was getting low down through the mulga. Mitch.e.l.l's mate had just finished a rather racy yarn, but it seemed to fall flat on Mitch.e.l.l--he was in a sentimental mood. He smoked a while, and thought, and then said:

"Ah! there was one little girl that I was properly struck on. She came to our place on a visit to my sister. I think she was the best little girl that ever lived, and about the prettiest. She was just eighteen, and didn't come up to my shoulder; the biggest blue eyes you ever saw, and she had hair that reached down to her knees, and so thick you couldn't span it with your two hands--brown and glossy--and her skin with like lilies and roses. Of course, I never thought she'd look at a rough, ugly, ignorant brute like me, and I used to keep out of her way and act a little stiff towards her; I didn't want the others to think I was gone on her, because I knew they'd laugh at me, and maybe she'd laugh at me more than all. She would come and talk to me, and sit near me at table; but I thought that that was on account of her good nature, and she pitied me because I was such a rough, awkward chap. I was gone on that girl, and no joking; and I felt quite proud to think she was a countrywoman of mine. But I wouldn't let her know that, for I felt sure she'd only laugh.

"Well, things went on till I got the offer of two or three years' work on a station up near the border, and I had to go, for I was hard up; besides, I wanted to get away. Stopping round where she was only made me miserable.

"The night I left they were all down at the station to see me off--including the girl I was gone on. When the train was ready to start she was standing away by herself on the dark end of the platform, and my sister kept nudging me and winking, and fooling about, but I didn't know what she was driving at. At last she said:

"'Go and speak to her, you noodle; go and say good-bye to Edie.'

"So I went up to where she was, and, when the others turned their backs--

"'Well, good-bye, Miss Brown,' I said, holding out my hand; 'I don't suppose I'll ever see you again, for Lord knows when I'll be back. Thank you for coming to see me off.'

"Just then she turned her face to the light, and I saw she was crying.

She was trembling all over. Suddenly she said, 'Jack! Jack!' just like that, and held up her arms like this."

Mitch.e.l.l was speaking in a tone of voice that didn't belong to him, and his mate looked up. Mitch.e.l.l's face was solemn, and his eyes were fixed on the fire.

"I suppose you gave her a good hug then, and a kiss?" asked the mate.

"I s'pose so," snapped Mitch.e.l.l. "There is some things a man doesn't want to joke about.... Well, I think we'll shove on one of the billies, and have a drink of tea before we turn in."

"I suppose," said Mitch.e.l.l's mate, as they drank their tea, "I suppose you'll go back and marry her some day?"

"Some day! That's it; it looks like it, doesn't it? We all say, 'Some day.' I used to say it ten years ago, and look at me now. I've been knocking round for five years, and the last two years constant on the track, and no show of getting off it unless I go for good, and what have I got for it? I look like going home and getting married, without a penny in my pocket or a rag to my back scarcely, and no show of getting them. I swore I'd never go back home without a cheque, and, what's more, I never will; but the cheque days are past. Look at that boot! If we were down among the settled districts we'd be called tramps and beggars; and what's the difference? I've been a fool, I know, but I've paid for it; and now there's nothing for it but to tramp, tramp, tramp for your tucker, and keep tramping till you get old and careless and dirty, and older, and more careless and dirtier, and you get used to the dust and sand, and heat, and flies, and mosquitoes, just as a bullock does, and lose ambition and hope, and get contented with this animal life, like a dog, and till your swag seems part of yourself, and you'd be lost and uneasy and light-shouldered without it, and you don't care a d.a.m.n if you'll ever get work again, or live like a Christian; and you go on like this till the spirit of a bullock takes the place of the heart of a man.

Who cares? If we hadn't found the track yesterday we might have lain and rotted in that lignum, and no one been any the wiser--or sorrier--who knows? Somebody might have found us in the end, but it mightn't have been worth his while to go out of his way and report us. d.a.m.n the world, say I!"

He smoked for a while in savage silence; then he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, felt for his tobacco with a sigh, and said:

"Well, I am a bit out of sorts to-night. I've been thinking.... I think we'd best turn in, old man; we've got a long, dry stretch before us to-morrow."

They rolled out their swags on the sand, lay down, and wrapped themselves in their blankets. Mitch.e.l.l covered his face with a piece of calico, because the moonlight and wind kept him awake.

"BRUMMY USEN"

We caught up with an old swagman crossing the plain, and tramped along with him till we came to good shade to have a smoke in. We had got yarning about men getting lost in the bush or going away and being reported dead.

"Yes," said the old 'whaler', as he dropped his swag in the shade, sat down on it, and felt for his smoking tackle, "there's scarcely an old bushman alive--or dead, for the matter of that--who hasn't been dead a few times in his life--or reported dead, which amounts to the same thing for a while. In my time there was as many live men in the bush who was supposed to be dead as there was dead men who was supposed to be alive--though it's the other way about now--what with so many jackaroos tramping about out back and getting lost in the dry country that they don't know anything about, and dying within a few yards of water sometimes. But even now, whenever I hear that an old bush mate of mine is dead, I don't fret about it or put a black band round my hat, because I know he'll be pretty sure to turn up sometimes, pretty bad with the booze, and want to borrow half a crown.

"I've been dead a few times myself, and found out afterwards that my friends was so sorry about it, and that I was such a good sort of a chap after all, when I was dead that--that I was sorry I didn't stop dead.

You see, I was one of them chaps that's better treated by their friends and better thought of when--when they're dead.

"Ah, well! Never mind.... Talking of killing bushmen before their time reminds me of some cases I knew. They mostly happened among the western spurs of the ranges. There was a bullock-driver named Billy Nowlett. He had a small selection, where he kept his family, and used to carry from the railway terminus to the stations up-country. One time he went up with a load and was not heard of for such a long time that his missus got mighty uneasy; and then she got a letter from a publican up c.o.o.namble way to say that Billy was dead. Someone wrote, for the widow, to ask about the wagon and the bullocks, but the shanty-keeper wrote that Billy had drunk them before he died, and that he'd also to say that he'd drunk the money he got for the carrying; and the publican enclosed a five-pound note for the widow--which was considered very kind of him.

"Well, the widow struggled along and managed without her husband just the same as she had always struggled along and managed with him--a little better, perhaps. An old digger used to drop in of evenings and sit by the widow's fire, and yarn, and sympathize, and smoke, and think; and just as he began to yarn a lot less, and smoke and think a lot more, Billy Nowlett himself turned up with a load of rations for a sheep station. He'd been down by the other road, and the letter he'd wrote to his missus had gone astray. Billy wasn't surprised to hear that he was dead--he'd been killed before--but he was surprised about the five quid.

"You see, it must have been another bullock-driver that died. There was an old shanty-keeper up c.o.o.namble way, so Billy said, that used to always mistake him for another bullocky and mistake the other bullocky for him--couldn't tell the one from the other no way--and he used to have bills against Billy that the other bullock-driver'd run up, and bills against the other that Billy'd run up, and generally got things mixed up in various ways, till Billy wished that one of 'em was dead.

And the funniest part of the business was that Billy wasn't no more like the other man than chalk is like cheese. You'll often drop across some colour-blind old codger that can't tell the difference between two people that ain't got a bit of likeness between 'em.