Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/341

 boating to any extent, books, and music,—all the refinements and elegancies then procurable in Australia. As to the course of everyday life, it did not differ noticeably, as I can aver from after-experience, from that of country-house life in England. The stables were well ordered, grooms and coachman being assigned servants of course. Perhaps a stricter supervision was necessary for some reasons. At a stated hour one of the sons of the house was expected to walk down to the stables, which were half a mile distant, to perform the regulation inspection, to see the evening corn given, the horses bedded down for the night.

We boys (Edmund, his younger brother Gussie, and myself) used to fish and bathe nearly all day long, continuing indeed the latter recreation in the summer afternoons till the sun scorched our backs. Then, after a joyous evening, how sweet to fall asleep, lulled by the surges, which ever, even in calmest weather, made mournful music on rock or silver-sanded shore the long night through!

About this time a certain adventure befell our party, which might have ended tragically. One fine morning Gussie and I, with a kinsman about the same age, went fishing in the bay. Our 'kellick' was down, and the sport had been good. The provisional anchor was lifted at length, as the wind, having shifted, began to blow off the land. We had delayed too long, and found it hard work to make headway against it. Pulling with unusual determination, one oar snapped. The blade floated away. The gale was rising fast. Moving broadside on meant being blown out to sea. An interval of uncertainty ensued. Gussie, who was a little fellow, began to cry as we rapidly receded from the Point and the waves rose higher.

I took the command—my first salt-water commission. It was no use letting matters (and the boat) drift. To this day I wonder at the inventiveness which the emergency developed. Taking off Gussie's pinafore, a brown holland garment of sufficient length, I caused him to stand up and hold it like a sail. Wallace, the other boy, was to act as look-out man. I took the tiller and steered towards Shark Island, which lay between Point Piper and the Heads. Our spread of canvas was just sufficient to keep steerage way on. The wind was right aft. And in a comparatively short time we jammed the