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CHAPTER XXI
‘GOOD-BYE, GOOD-BYE!’
Alf was gone.
In his bedroom there still hung his old school-suit, his sunburnt hat, his shabby mackintosh—Phyl could not realize that he would never again come stamping and clattering up the stairs to put any of them on. Richie was to have the clothes now, but it gave them all a sharp pang the first time he wore the green-black rain-coat that still seemed to have beneath it Alf’s solid little figure.
Phyl emptied the pockets of the coat herself, before it was transferred to Richie. String, stamps, bits of pencil, a padlock, several nails, several marbles, a penny dreadful, some peach-stones, a conversation-peppermint with “Name the day” upon it, three pocket-knives, a bit of rope tied in ingenious knots, two or three ends of match-boxes, the major half of a [227] cigarette that had made the boy no one knew how ill,—all these things she emptied tenderly from the pockets into a collar-box and carried them off to her own room.
Mr. Mergell’s agent had been to the house two or three times; a burly, kind-eyed German, with a delightfully broken accent; they all liked him immediately. He had unlimited credit to set up Alf’s wardrobe for the voyage—in the words of his grandfather—as “befitted a gentleman.” Even Alf himself took a passing interest in the ever-arriving parcels. Mrs. Wise did the shopping as requested on an unstinted scale, and Richie and Freddie and the girls were filled with admiration at the beautiful things that kept arriving,—a cabin-box, a handsome tan Gladstone bag, a portmanteau that turned at need into a bath, a little dressing-case with “A. W. M. W.” upon a silver plate, half-a-dozen suits, hats, shoes and boots, shirts, even white gloves for dances aboard.
“If it were any one but Alf,” said Mrs. Wise as she packed, “the transition from two suits—one bad and the other worse—to all this luxury would make a coxcomb of him. But Alf is safe, so we may as well please the grandfather and the aunt.”
The great steamer went out on a Saturday, and all the family went on board to view the cabin, to see the luggage well disposed, and to catch the last glimpse of the lad.
He wore one of his new suits, a well-cut blue serge, [228] his boots creaked, his straw hat was immaculate—all these things added to his misery.
The parting hour fled past. The boys had tramped all over the decks to see the workings of the mammoth creature that soon would be quivering with life; the girls had explored the magnificent white and gold saloon, the music-room, the splendid state-rooms, all so different from the plain though comfortable boat that had seen their voyaging.
But now the last bell had gone and the last straggler been hurried off. The gangways were cast off and dragged in, the great black side that had lain motionless against the wharf, very, very slowly began to move along. Alf was leaning over the upper deckrail, his chin on his hands, his hat tilted over his eyes: the burly German was beside him, trying to cheer his spirits, but the lad looked down at the dear, upturned faces, and his heart seemed bursting. Then a strange thing happened on deck; there came a boy’s shout, so familiar a shout that the doctor and his family turned their eyes alarmedly in the direction.
And lo! the pressing passengers divided in one place, and a little wild-eyed boy sprang up on the seat.
“Hi there, stop, hold hard, I’m not going!” he yelled.
“Freddie!” gasped Mrs. Wise; she had seen him actually off the boat, held his hand indeed down the gangway, but once off—he was a big boy now—she had not thought of him.
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And now there he was, hatless, shouting, gesticulating
among the passengers bound for the continent
of Europe.
“Hi there, stop!” he screamed again, his voice grown shrill with terror; “let me off; hi there! make the captain stop, father! Clif, get me off, make him stop, can’t you!”
Alf and the agent rushed down the deck to the small, frantic youth, and there quickly sprang up in the little crowd several officers.
Freddie was almost beside himself; he shrank away from his astonished brother; he fought himself free of the burly German’s hands; they had to hold him firmly, or he would have gone bodily over the vessel’s side.
The officers acted with the promptitude necessary seeing the vessel was almost past the wharf now, and no one seemed anxious to have the boy’s company as far as Melbourne. Freddie found them tying a rope round his waist and making arm-loops for him with another one. He quietened a little while they did this, only his heaving chest and streaming eyes showing the agitation under which he was labouring.
“Perhaps he had better come on to Melbourne, Mr. Johansen,” said the first officer gloomily to the third who was roping Freddie.
But at this Freddie began to kick and give vent to such heart-broken howls that the third officer, father of sundry small boys, said he thought they could manage to deposit him.
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They hallooed to a rowing-boat to come up, and
the boatman approached as closely as he might.
Then Freddie was lowered slowly down the side by
a couple of sailors; the girls and Mrs. Wise shut
their eyes one fearful minute when they saw the little
dangling body and terrified white face.
The next second he swung out a little; one man in the boat caught him, the other swept the boat round and out of the way.
A loud cheer went up from ship and wharf when the child was put on the solid ground once more.
“Good heavens, boy, what did you do that for?” said the doctor in natural irritation at finding [231] himself and family the cynosure of every one’s observation.
But Freddie was beyond excusing himself. Dolly’s arms opened for him, and he made a rush for such a haven. Phyl closed in at the other side to help to soothe and comfort. Alf carried away with him, as the last bit of home, the sight of the two girls in their blue serge dresses and sailor hats looking after him with drenched blue eyes, and at the same time trying to pat and soothe to quietness the boy who was burying his head on Dolly’s arm.
The kindly German tried to direct his attention to the fussy little pilot-boat, to the sailor who was hanging by his teeth, it seemed, from the rigging. But Alf’s eyes gazed wharfward till the last flutter of a handkerchief faded, then he gulped very hard and disappeared till dinner-time; when, it must be confessed, roast ducklings and the choice of half-a-score of delicious puddings went far to assuaging his grief.
Freddie travelled home with his family, hatless. From time to time during the journey he drew a sobbing breath, as if the recollection was too much for him; but it was not till he was in bed at night, and Dolly tucking him comfortably in, that he would give any explanation of his conduct.
Then it came out, bit by bit. Alf looked so miserable, and it seemed so dreadful a thing to be going alone across the great ocean, that he (Freddie), in a sudden [232] fit of brotherly love and self-abnegation, had resolved to accompany him.
The struggle was a hard one, and was fought manfully out on the wharf after the bell had rung for the boat to be cleared. No one to look at him could have guessed of the tumult that was going on beneath the white chest flannel of his sailor coat.
On the one hand there was his home, and all his happiness, a comfortable bed, and sisters or a mother to tuck him up and give the good-night kiss.
And then there was Alf, poor Alf, up there biting his poor lips, trying to smile down at them, crushing his hat over his eyes—walking away from the side, then coming back again, and looking, looking, looking! Yes, he would give up everything, and accompany him into his exile.
He slipped his hand from out his mother’s and mingled again with the crowd. Amid the stream coming down from the boat, and the hurrying stragglers going up, who was to notice so insignificant a person as a small boy, in a sailor suit, pressing upwards? Once on deck he did not join Alf. He quite understood he must be a stowaway, and hide all the voyage in Alf’s cabin. For the present he crushed his small body into a space between two hen-coops. And then at last the quiver of life ran through the great inert vessel, and then the bells rang, and the straining sound of the ropes ceased, and the engines began to work, and sailors rushed [233] hither and thither, and officers called out instructions, and the men not on duty sat and looked sleepily at the frothing waters.
Freddie’s courage oozed away as rapidly as it had risen. After all, he would not go;—no, it was too much to ask. Who knows what horrible things would await him in that far land, away from father and mother and sisters? No; he would get off at once while he could, and Alf must go alone—after all, perhaps, he would not mind so very much.
He extricated himself from his cramped position and scurried along the deck in the hopes of meeting the captain. But the ship’s movement continued, and a frenzied glance to the side showed the gangways entirely gone, and the wharf slipping slowly, slowly, slowly back.
It was then that the horror of his situation mastered him and made him break through the crowd at the side, leap on to the seat, and implore, with sobs and tears, for the ship to stop.
“S—s—stay with us, Dolly,” he whimpered, when, at the end of the recital, everything seemed so vivid again he could hardly believe his little bed was secure. So Dolly, seeing his agitation was not even yet calmed down, brought a green volume of Alice, and read the Tweedledum and Tweedledee battle, and the moving tale of the Walrus and the Carpenter, until sleep conquered the excitement.