son of a gentleman who had passed his life in investigating the comparative merits of every operahouse, gambling-house, and debtors' prison in Europe. My noble young friend gave the tone to the English part of the school, and we all despised trade as if our fathers had not been, as most were, successful butchers, bakers, tailors, or attorneys. Nothing less than a Government appointment, or the army or navy, was talked of by any of us; we had imbibed enough French to be philosophers, and heartily despised the Church. In reply to my letter, I received a long sermon from my second brother, who, in virtue of a particularly disagreeable temper, had been allowed to have his own way in everything. He told me, truly enough, that I had no fortune except a share in a Chancery suit, which might end in one year or twenty, and no interest in either the army or navy; that I might come to him as a pupil, though he did not expect any good from a person with such ridiculous notions; or I might go to my uncle Crabby, and be articled to law-he would take me without a premium. As for being a farmer, that would take more, ten times more, capital than I was ever likely to have. To cut a long story short, I went to my brother, and passed three months in making pills and mixing powders, drew teeth, performed several electrical experiments on cats and pauper patients, but found my taste did not lie toward attending on all the maladies of the human race for the hope of eventually gaining a hard livelihood from people who were always discontented with their bills in proportion to the renewed vigour of their health. From my brother I migrated to my uncle, in Gray's Inn, where I had copied two abstracts, not without many blunders, and narrowly escaped being ACCOMPLISHED AND USELESS. 7 coaxed into serving a writ; at the end of six months fell into a low fever from confinement, disgust, and vexation, and fully made up my mind that I was not cut out for a lawyer. Very miserable, I had serious thoughts of enlisting, but fortunately was too short for the Life Guards, while walking with a knapsack on my back and a musket on my shoulder was not to my taste. They were now very glad to get rid of me, for it was difficult to say what I was ever likely to be fit for. I was seventeen, five feet six, and eight stone, could ride, drive, and throw a fly, write a plain hand without many blunders in spelling, and do the first four rules in arithmetic if the addition columns were not too long. I spoke French like a native, could fence as well as a corporal of Chasseurs, could hit a hat with single pistol ball at twenty paces four times out of five, and sing Kelruddery well enough to please a fox-hunting club; but sit still or work on a high stool, I could not: in fact, as my brother said, I was fit for nothing but to live genteelly in a cavalry regiment with an allowance of two hundred a year, by getting into debt as much more. At any rate, I was fit for nothing that required indoor work or the control of a master; for my own part, I was willing to become a whipper-in, but that the dignity of my family would not allow. It was in this frame of mind that I met my old schoolfellow Dick Grafton, with a cab-load of outfit, besides a waggon that had gone on before, going down to the ship in which he was to emigrate to New Zealand, at that time in all the bloom of a fashionable colony. We dined, and spent a week together at Gravesend; and then I made up my mind I would be an emigrant, with no other notion than that it was a sort of rural life, with little to do, plenty of horses to ride, and a fortune in the horizon. My friends were too glad to get rid of me to make any objection; but as New Zealand required— so said the flaming prospectus-men of capital, and one of my uncles had a friend in Sydney, it was decided to send me there. My outfit was soon ready, my farewells taken, and with very few regrets I bade adieu to counting-houses, offices, high stools, schoolmasters, elder brothers, long speeches of good advice, and continual lectures from my aunts on torn clothes and muddy shoes. At the last moment, on taking leave of the favourites in my family, my heart melted : "Some natural tears I shed, Yet I found something within me that I did not know before, associated not only with my sisters, but a foster-sister, daughter of old Reuben Clewer, my playmate as a child, but on my farewell visit grown into the first pretty girl I had much noticed. Of my adventures in the bush of Australia, and many strange stories told there over the evening fire, I kept a rough log; a habit I learned at the same time that I acquired a taste for reading on board ship; and now, having some leisure on my hands during a hard frost, I have amused myself with stringing together what I hope may be thought amusing and not quite useless. CHAPTER II. MY ADVENTURES AT SEA. THE arrangements for my leaving England having been all completed, except the choice of a vessel -that was left entirely to me, and very proud I was of the responsibility-for economy I was sent to Liverpool, not having the maxim so uncomplimentary to Liverpool ships, Scotch captains and north country owners, before my eyes. I had three chests of useless outfit, besides a hundredweight of books, and a whole carpet-bag full of letters of introduction. People relieved their friends, bestowed patronage, and fancied they saved postage, by writing letters of introduction to people whose fathers, uncles, or cousins they had met at dinner, or ridden with in the same conveyance; these letters being promiscuously addressed to Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart Town, and Wellington in New Zealand. It cost me some weeks to make my choice of a ship in Liverpool Docks, for they were not so plentiful, so punctual, or so much puffed as they are now. For want of knowing any better, and partly from a dislike to crowds that has always been part of my character-a feeling which did much toward making me happy in the bush when friends and companions of the same age were miserable-I took a passage in a small, fast-sailing brig, under two hundred tons burden, which was intended to be sold for a coaster in the colony. The captain was going out to settle; he took his wife with him, but I was the only passenger. Captains on shore and captains at sea are quite different creatures. This was one of the old school. On shore, he seemed like a jolly fellow, rough and good-natured—at sea, he was a perfect brute, got drunk every evening, thrashed his wife, and ill-used his men; but, although profoundly ignorant on most subjects, a thorough seaman. On the morning we were to sail, we lay in the stream of the Mersey, Blue Peter flying and anchor tripped; we waited for the captain and mate so long, it seemed as if we should miss the tide. At length the captain came, as fast as two pair of oars could pull him, looking very red and angry; no mate, but a strange man sitting in the stern sheets beside him. It seemed the mate had given him the slip at the last moment, and gone off to Mary, his landlady, whose husband had died the week before, and he had been obliged to engage the stranger, with very little inquiry. This man was a lanky north countryman, with a deadly pale face, without whiskers, a bald forehead, an immense mouth, black eyes with an awful squint, and a costume of seedy black, so that he looked much more like a hedge schoolmaster than a sailor. He carried a parcel of sea-faring clothes in his hand, which the captain had been obliged to buy for him at the nearest slopshop. He brought nothing else, but a large, very light chest, and an enormous appetite. But, in spite of his unprepossessing appearance and shore-going costume, the crew at once recognised him as a regular sea-dog. Indeed, by the time he got into his pea-coat and loose trousers, and had a fortnight of our fare, if he did not grow handsomer, he seemed, at any rate, transformed into the style of man that attracts thunders |