LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1890, 15 March 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE FINDING OF MY MOTHER. A Colonial Story. From “ Temple Bar,” ( Concluded .) When I again woke it was quite dark, save for a little stream of gaslight that came in under the door, I could not recollect where I was. Presently I heard shouts of laughter, the clinking of glasses, and every now and then a curious rattling sound, and at intervals, above all, a great hearty laugh. Then I remembered. There was evidently a brisk trade doing at the bar. After a bit I heard the station bell ring, and the customers troop out. The whistle of an engine sounded, and the noise of a departing train died away in the distance. Suddenly it flashed across me that it was the last train for the night that had gone. I rose and, making my way towards the light, opened the door. The gas was burning bright over the bar, and behind the latter sat the giant, with a long book before him. A heap of coppers, a heap of silver, and a little pile of gold were beside him. ' Between his teeth he held his pen, and [with his head on one side he surveyed his cashbook. Suddenly he turned, and seeing me, smiled, ‘ Woke up at last ? ’ he inquired. ‘Yea’ ‘How do you feel now?’ ‘ Quite w ell, sir.’ ‘ Then we’ll wash up and go home.’ * Has the last train gone ? ’ I asked. ‘Ay, but never mind that; just sit down anywhere, and wait till I get this infernal cash straight.” ‘ Couldn’t I help you with the glasses ? ’ I asked. He said nothing, but threw me a towel. I soon had the counter clean and cleared, bnt the giant did not seem to progress. His forefinger travelled up and down, up and down, the page again and again, and at the end of each addition he swore frightfully. At last he counted the cash beside him, and swept it all into a large cash box. Ocular demonstration was conclusive with him, whatever the book might say as to the correct amount of cash. I offered to add the book up, ‘ Too late to-nigbt,’ said he; * come along.’ And taking hold of the cash-box, he told me to go out, after which he turned off the gas, and came away himself, shutting the door. We started up the pier. I trotted along side of him. I asked him where he was going. ‘Home,’said he. ' I must go home too,’ said I. ‘ Where ?’ he asked. I blushed in the darkneis. That morning I had left for good the wretched little boarding-house at which I had stayed since landing. He felt that I hesitated to reply, and he said—‘ Come with me.’ We left the pier, and skirted the town. In half an hour or more we came to a cottage, standing by itself. The giant opened the door, and, striking a match, lit a kerosine lamp. The light revealed two rooms with walla and ceilings of bare boards and joists. I could see a bed in the back room. There was a table and two chairs in the front one. This was the whole of the house and furniture. I sat down by the giant’s order, while he took from a chest a great round of beef, some pickles, and salt, plates, knives, and forks, and a couple of bottles of beer. ‘Now, boy,’ said he, ‘I guess you’ie hungry again. Wire in.’ We both * wired in,’ and made the beef and pickles look small. When we had finished, the giant pulled a pipe and a twist of tobacco out of his pocket, and proceeded to cat the latter upon the table. As he did eo, ho said inquiringly, ‘You’re a new ohcm ?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ I replied. * Any one could sae that, ’ he remarked ; * when did yon come ?’ ‘Three months ago.’ • What did you come for ?’ *l-1 am a clerk,’ I replied, ‘ Clerk !’ he roared; ‘ what in the name of all that’s eternal do you want in the colonies, then ? Bleat if I didn’t think that you were a gentleman. Not that there’s any call for such here. Why do you wear them black toga for?’ ‘ I haven’t got any others,’ I replied. This was unanswerable, so he lit his pipe. He had placed me in a canvas chair, and as I lay back in it, and watched him through the smoke which curled upwards from his pipe, a feeling came over me that I had seen him before. His face bore a shadowy semblance to one I remembered—where? Breaking the silence, be repeated his question—- ‘ What did you come for ?’ My thoughts had somehow gone back to home, and I answered without thinking of what he was saying—‘To look for my mother. ’

The next instant I wished my words unsaid. The giant burst into a roar of laughter. It shook the walls of the house ; it ebook the roof; it shook the table ; and it entirely disconcerted me.

1 Mother !’ he ejaculated ; * mother ! He’s come to look for his mother I’ he screamed ; ‘ha, ha, ha!’ and off he went into another fit.

Then he stopped ; but slapped his thighs and knees, which set him off again. * Mother 1 I’ve heard o’ lots of ’em coming out to make fortunes; to knock gold and silver out o’ stones ; and I’ve known them come out to do nothing ; but, d—n me !if ever I heard of a new chum what said he had come out to look for his mother. Ha, ha, ha 1’ and off he went again. How long he might have gone on laughing goodness knows, but he suddenly perceived the look of chagrin and disappointment on my face, and it appealed to his good nature, and made him at last stop his mirth.

• Well, well, lad,’ said he, slackening down, but still humourous ; ‘ where’s your father ?’

I was angry, and did not answer. He saw this; and placing a hand on my shoulder, said kindly, ‘I won’t say you won’t find your mother, my boy. Victoria’s a small p l ace, if so be she’s in Victoria, and if she is, it’s even money she’s in Melbourne. Queerer things have happened than that you should find her.’ Then perceiving that I was not quite mollified, he continued—- • Lord, my lad. I could tall ye a queer thing that happened to myself.’ * What is that ?’ I asked eagerly ;’ tell it me,’ He smoked on in silence for a minute or two, and then said— ‘ Well, I will tell ye, ’cause it has a sort of bearing on your own case, and it can’t do any harm to tell it ye ; but mind, ye must never let it go past ye—never —promise ?' I promised ; my attention was excited. Patting the top cf his pipe with his little finger, he commenced slowly— * It was about —Well, never mind when it was. It was a good many years ago, and I was at Gympie. V ou’ve heard o’ Gympie ?’ ‘No.’

■ Well, folks don’t give much heed to those sort of things at home, but here, every man who had a notion of gold, shouldered h'B ‘ swag’ and was off. Gympie’s in the north. It did’nt ‘ pan’ out well forme there. New Zealand now 1 Bat that’s not what I was going to say. Well, I had come down to Brisbane, to get out of Queensland, and and was loafing along one o’ the streets of the place waiting for the Melbourne boat, when a carriage and pair stops with a splatter beside of me, and gives me a kind of a start. They drawed up so sudden, ye see.

‘Where are ye going?’ growls I, and somebody shouts out, quite cheery, *By heaven 1’ only ho didn’t say ‘ By heaven !’ He named another place he had more notion of.

‘ There’s Bed Jack ?’ They called me Bed Jack, ’cause o’ the beard.’ And here the giant stroked that appendage to his face with great satisfaction. * I looks up,’ he continued, ‘ and gets a whack on the chest from a portmanteau. * Vast heaving,’ says I. * Don’t you know me ?’ says he. And, sure enough, it was my old mate, Dan Doolan. But. Lord, I would ha’ known him if it hadn’t been for his voice—blue coat white hat, green choker, yellow breeches, boots as black as a stove, and so shiny 1 ‘ Dan !’ says I. ‘The same,’ says he; and with that he jumps out of the carriage. ‘ Vou’re just the man I wanted,’ says he ; ‘ get in.’ ‘Let’s have a ‘nobbier,’ [a drink] says I. ‘ No time,’ says he ; and with that he shoves me into the trap, gets np and shuts the door, and away we goes, spanking down the street as fast as ye like.

‘You’re In a precioua hurry, Dan,’ eaya L ‘ Faix! and when wouldn’t a man be if it wasn’t when he was agoing to his own wedding,’ says he. * Wedding V says I, looking at him. ‘That’s the size of it,’ says he; ‘an you’re going to be my beat man.’ ‘ Let me out,’ says I. ‘Devil a bit of it,’ says he. ‘I haven’t any clothes to go in,’ says I, trying to open the door of the carriage, * nor the money to buy ’em with.’ * D—n the money.’ says he, and pulls out a btmdle of notes as thick as a book. ‘ Good God/ says I, ‘ is that from the old olaim ?’

‘lt is,’ says he, and then ha told me, just after I had left the darned hole, he and the others had struck the metal.

* I was always too late for anything good,’ Bays I. ‘ Faith, don’t say that when you’re just in time for my wedding,’ says he. ‘ And do ye think that’ll be any good to ye ?’ says I. ‘Wait till ye see her,’ says he, and then he goes into a yarn as long as my leg as to how he had met her, and how at first she wouldn’t have anything to say to him, and how at last she would.

* You know how women go on when they fancy they’ve got hold of a good thing—always a-saying they don’t think anything on it.’

Dan was in earnest, any way, I could see that, for he jawed away about her till the trap stopped. It was at an hotel that trap stopped at —a wooden one. There wasn’t so mnch stone abont Brisbane in those days as there is now—and yon could have heard the row that was going on in that hotel right across the street, and farther than the next block. Such a darned lot o’ men and women came out on to the verandah as you’d athought would have broken it down. ‘ Hurroo !’ says they. * Hurroo!’ says Dan, and in we goes, ‘ I had no call to be ashamed of my clothes. Thera was diggers in shirts and moleskins, there was diggers there in slops, there was diggers there in long coats and tall hats, there was diggers there in duck, there wag diggers there with gloves on ’em. In fact there was all sorts of ’em ; and as for the women, Lord knows where they had all come from, but they had started early, and called in at the stores on their way, I calculate.

‘ln the dining room there was no end of a spread. Champagne all along the table, and at the bar there was a crowd indulging promiscuous in free drinks. I never seed each a kick np. Dan introduced me to his friends, and in less than a minute I had had more liquor offered me than would have done to have washed myself in, had I been so minded.

‘ Parson’s ready,’ presently shouts some one down the stairs, and we all goes np ’em. I’m blest if any of us knew what we were adoing at first, but by and bye we all gets squeezed into our places, the men on one side of the room, the women on the other. I was next to Dan, of course, holding his gloves. ‘ Parson, he was just in front of ns, and wo were all ready, a-waiting for the bride. I was just speculating where she was acoming from, when one of the doors of the room opens, and in walks Now, who do yon think ?’—and the giant'laid his hand on my knee, bringing his face close to mine —‘my own wife ! There was no mistaking her,’ ho continued, rising, and pointing out with outstretched arm at an imaginary woman, ‘ There she was, looking almost as fresh and hearty as when she drove me away from her in the old country, fifteen years afore!’

‘Drove you away from her? I ejaculated, ‘Ay, lad,’ replied the giant, reflectively. Up to this point I had wondered what connection the giant’s story had with my chance of finding my mother. Now an idea seized me, and completely staggered me for the moment. I started up. * She drove you away from her ?’ I re* repeated. ‘Ay, devil a one could stand .her tongue,’ said he.

‘Tour name? —oh! your name, sir?’ said I.

‘ Stevens,’ answered the giant. * Once of Stepney ?’ ‘ The same, ’ he replied. ‘Father!’ I exclaimed, and threw myself into his arms. At first he could not make it out. That his child, whom he had forgotten, should be the first to awaken, after so many years, affection in his rough heart, was what he had never thought of. I felt him tremble under my embrace. Then, thrusting me from him, he exclaimed —‘Charley,my son!’ and examined my face. He next questioned me as to my uncle and aunt and, finding my answers correct, sat down with me on his knee, satisfied that I was indeed his son. ‘Go on with your story, father,’ 1 soon said. ‘ What o! my mother ? Where is she?’ ‘Guess I don’t know,’ replied my father, cooling down suddenly. * How, why ?’ I asked. ‘ 'Case I’ve never seen her from the day Dan married her to this.’ ‘ You—you don’t say, father, he married her ?’ I exclaimed, * I trust he did,’ replied my father, * That’s bigamy,’ I exclaimed. ‘ I call it a blessing,’ said he. ‘ But she’s not his wife.’ ‘ Well, perhaps not. Shouldn’t wonder 1 , now you mention it, if she’s somebody else’s by this time. I guess she’s not mine anyhow,’ and he knocked the ashes out of his pipe deliberately. * She didn’t perceive me on that occasion, he went on; ‘ and so I took my own opinion on the matter. I don’t suppose she was nervous; she was’t a nervous sort. But I expect she was a-keeping her eyes on Dan; and Dan, he was a-staring at her, and so were the rest of the people ; and so, as soon as I saw how it was, I just slipped out at one of the verandah windows, and over the verandah rail, spry as a monkey, and dropped, I don’t know how high it was, into the street, and was off. That wedding went on without me, X guess j leastwise, I saw it in the paper the day after, on board the Sydney boat. I was real sorry for Dan, real sorry ; but what could I do ?’ And my father filled his pipe with an air. of satisfaction, at the recollection of having, by his presence of mind, escaped from an awkward predicament. As for myself, X had to give up all attempt to find my mother. My father would not hear of it. He made me solemnly promise never to try to seek her in any way, and then took me into his refreshment business. I became bis assistant behind the bar, and soon learnt the mystery of ‘shaking’ strangers for drinks, which mystery consisted in having peculiar dice, and a decanter full of cold tea instead of brandy, for private consumption. X soon became quick, and colonial in my manner, and continued a great favourite with my father as long as I never alluded in any way to my mother.