CHAPTER VI
A HOSPITABLE COLONIST
THE captain's first care was to anchor his vessel securely. He found
excellent moorage in five fathoms'
depth of water, with a solid bottom of hard granite, which
afforded a firm hold. There was no danger now of either
being driven away or stranded at low water. After so
many hours of danger, the Duncan found herself in a sort
of creek, sheltered by a high circular point from the winds
outside in the open sea.
Lord Glenarvan grasped John Mangles' hand, and simply
said: "Thank you, John."
This was all, but John felt it ample recompense. Glenarvan kept to
himself the secret of his anxiety, and neither
Lady Helena, nor Mary, nor Robert suspected the grave
perils they had just escaped.
One important fact had to be ascertained. On what
part of the coast had the tempest thrown them? How far
must they go to regain the parallel. At what distance
S. W. was Cape Bernouilli? This was soon determined by
taking the position of the ship, and it was found that she
had scarcely deviated two degrees from the route. They
were in longitude 36 degrees 12 minutes, and latitude 32
degrees 67 minutes, at Cape Catastrophe, three hundred
miles from Cape Bernouilli. The nearest port was Adelaide, the Capital of
Southern Australia.
Could the Duncan be repaired there? This was the
question. The extent of the injuries must first be ascertained, and in order to
do this he ordered some of the men
to dive down below the stern. Their report was that one
of the branches of the screw was bent, and had got jammed
against the stern post, which of course prevented all possibility of rotation.
This was a serious damage, so serious
as to require more skilful workmen than could be found in
Adelaide.
After mature reflection, Lord Glenarvan and John Mangles came to the
determination to sail round the Australian
coast, stopping at Cape Bernouilli, and continuing their
route south as far as Melbourne, where the Duncan could
speedily be put right. This effected, they would proceed
to cruise along the eastern coast to complete their search
for the Britannia.
This decision was unanimously approved, and it was
agreed that they should start with the first fair wind.
They had not to wait long for the same night the hurricane
had ceased entirely, and there was only a manageable
breeze from the S. W. Preparations for sailing were instantly commenced, and at
four o'clock in the morning the
crew lifted the anchors, and got under way with fresh canvas outspread, and a
wind blowing right for the Australian
shores.
Two hours afterward Cape Catastrophe was out of
sight. In the evening they doubled Cape Borda, and came
alongside Kangaroo Island. This is the largest of the
Australian islands, and a great hiding place for runaway
convicts. Its appearance was enchanting. The stratified
rocks on the shore were richly carpeted with verdure, and
innumerable kangaroos were jumping over the woods and
plains, just as at the time of its discovery in 1802. Next
day, boats were sent ashore to examine the coast minutely,
as they were now on the 36th parallel, and between that and
the 38th Glenarvan wished to leave no part unexplored.
The boats had hard, rough work of it now, but the men
never complained. Glenarvan and his inseparable companion, Paganel, and young
Robert generally accompanied
them. But all this painstaking exploration came to nothing. Not a trace of the
shipwreck could be seen anywhere.
The Australian shores revealed no more than the Patagonian. However, it was not
time yet to lose hope altogether, for they had not reached the exact point
indicated
by the document.
On the 20th of December, they arrived off Cape Bernouilli, which
terminates Lacepede Bay, and yet not a
vestige of the Britannia had been discovered. Still this
was not surprising, as it was two years since the occurrence of the catastrophe,
and the sea might, and indeed
must, have scattered and destroyed whatever fragments
of the brig had remained. Besides, the natives who scent
a wreck as the vultures do a dead body, would have pounced
upon it and carried off the smaller débris. There was no
doubt whatever Harry Grant and his companions had been
made prisoners the moment the waves threw them on the
shore, and been dragged away into the interior of the continent.
But if so, what becomes of Paganel's ingenious hypothesis about the
document? viz., that it had been thrown into
a river and carried by a current into the sea. That was a
plausible enough theory in Patagonia, but not in the part
of Australia intersected by the 37th parallel. Besides the
Patagonian rivers, the Rio Colorado and the Rio Negro,
flow into the sea along deserted solitudes, uninhabited and
uninhabitable; while, on the contrary, the principal rivers
of Australia — the Murray, the Yarrow, the Torrens, the
Darling — all connected with each other, throw themselves
into the ocean by well-frequented routes, and their mouths
are ports of great activity. What likelihood, consequently,
would there be that a fragile bottle would ever find its way
along such busy thoroughfares right out into the Indian
Ocean?
Paganel himself saw the impossibility of it, and confessed to the Major,
who raised a discussion on the subject,
that his hypothesis would be altogether illogical in Australia. It was evident
that the degrees given related to
the place where the Britannia was actually shipwrecked
and not the place of captivity, and that the bottle therefore
had been thrown into the sea on the western coast of the
continent.
However, as Glenarvan justly remarked, this did not
alter the fact of Captain Grant's captivity in the least degree, though there
was no reason now for prosecuting the
search for him along the 37th parallel, more than any other.
It followed, consequently, that if no traces of the Britannia
were discovered at Cape Bernouilli, the only thing to be
done was to return to Europe. Lord Glenarvan would
have been unsuccessful, but he would have done his duty
courageously and conscientiously.
But the young Grants did not feel disheartened. They
had long since said to themselves that the question of their
father's deliverance was about to be finally settled. Irrevocably, indeed, they
might consider it, for as Paganel had
judiciously demonstrated, if the wreck had occurred on the
eastern side, the survivors would have found their way
back to their own country long since.
"Hope on! Hope on, Mary!" said Lady Helena to
the young girl, as they neared the shore; "God's hand will
still lead us."
"Yes, Miss Mary," said Captain John. "Man's extremity is God's
opportunity. When one way is hedged
up another is sure to open."
"God grant it," replied Mary.
Land was quite close now. The cape ran out two miles
into the sea, and terminated in a gentle slope, and the boat
glided easily into a sort of natural creek between coral
banks in a state of formation, which in course of time
would be a belt of coral reefs round the southern point of
the Australian coast. Even now they were quite sufficiently formidable to
destroy the keel of a ship, and the
Britannia might likely enough have been dashed to pieces
on them.
The passengers landed without the least difficulty on an
absolutely desert shore. Cliffs composed of beds of strata
made a coast line sixty to eighty feet high, which it would
have been difficult to scale without ladders or cramp-irons.
John Mangles happened to discover a natural breach about
half a mile south. Part of the cliff had been partially
beaten down, no doubt, by the sea in some equinoctial gale.
Through this opening the whole party passed and reached
the top of the cliff by a pretty steep path. Robert climbed
like a young cat, and was the first on the summit, to the
despair of Paganel, who was quite ashamed to see his
long legs, forty years old, out-distanced by a young urchin
of twelve. However, he was far ahead of the Major, who
gave himself no concern on the subject.
They were all soon assembled on the lofty crags, and
from this elevation could command a view of the whole
plain below. It appeared entirely uncultivated, and covered with shrubs and
bushes. Glenarvan thought it resembled some glens in the lowlands of Scotland,
and
Paganel fancied it like some barren parts of Britanny.
But along the coast the country appeared to be inhabited,
and significant signs of industry revealed the presence of
civilized men, not savages.
"A mill!" exclaimed Robert.
And, sure enough, in the distance the long sails of a mill
appeared, apparently about three miles off.
"It certainly is a windmill," said Paganel, after examining the object in
question through his telescope.
"Let us go to it, then," said Glenarvan.
Away they started, and, after walking about half an
hour, the country began to assume a new aspect, suddenly
changing its sterility for cultivation. Instead of bushes,
quick-set hedges met the eye, inclosing recent clearings.
Several bullocks and about half a dozen horses were feeding in meadows,
surrounded by acacias supplied from the
vast plantations of Kangaroo Island. Gradually fields
covered with cereals came in sight, whole acres covered
with bristling ears of corn, hay-ricks in the shape of large
bee-hives, blooming orchards, a fine garden worthy of Horace, in which the
useful and agreeable were blended; then
came sheds; commons wisely distributed, and last of all, a
plain comfortable dwelling-house, crowned by a joyoussounding mill, and fanned
and shaded by its long sails as
they kept constantly moving round.
Just at that moment a pleasant-faced man, about fifty
years of age, came out of the house, warned, by the loud
barking of four dogs, of the arrival of strangers. He was
followed by five handsome strapping lads, his sons, and
their mother, a fine tall woman. There was no mistaking
the little group. This was a perfect type of the Irish colonist — a man who,
weary of the miseries of his country,
had come, with his family, to seek fortune and happiness
beyond the seas.
Before Glenarvan and his party had time to reach the
house and present themselves in due form, they heard the
cordial words: "Strangers! welcome to the house of Paddy
O'Moore!"
"You are Irish," said Glenarvan, "if I am not mistaken," warmly grasping
the outstretched hand of the colonist.
"I was," replied Paddy O'Moore, "but now I am Australian. Come in,
gentlemen, whoever you may be, this
house is yours."
It was impossible not to accept an invitation given with
such grace. Lady Helena and Mary Grant were led in by
Mrs. O'Moore, while the gentlemen were assisted by his
sturdy sons to disencumber themselves of their fire-arms.
An immense hall, light and airy, occupied the ground
floor of the house, which was built of strong planks laid
horizontally. A few wooden benches fastened against the
gaily-colored walls, about ten stools, two oak chests on
tin mugs, a large long table where twenty guests could
sit comfortably, composed the furniture, which looked in
perfect keeping with the solid house and robust inmates.
The noonday meal was spread; the soup tureen was
smoking between roast beef and a leg of mutton, surrounded by large plates of
olives, grapes, and oranges.
The necessary was there and there was no lack of the
superfluous. The host and hostess were so pleasant, and
the big table, with its abundant fare, looked so inviting,
that it would have been ungracious not to have seated themselves. The farm
servants, on equal footing with their
master, were already in their places to take their share of
the meal. Paddy O'Moore pointed to the seats reserved
for the strangers, and said to Glenarvan:
"I was waiting for you."
"Waiting for us!" replied Glenarvan in a tone of surprise.
"I am always waiting for those who come," said the
Irishman; and then, in a solemn voice, while the family
and domestics reverently stood, he repeated the Benedicite.
Dinner followed immediately, during which an animated
conversation was kept up on all sides. From Scotch to
Irish is but a handsbreadth. The Tweed, several fathoms
wide, digs a deeper trench between Scotland and England
than the twenty leagues of Irish Channel, which separates
Old Caledonia from the Emerald Isle. Paddy O'Moore
related his history. It was that of all emigrants driven
by misfortune from their own country. Many come to
seek fortunes who only find trouble and sorrow, and then
they throw the blame on chance, and forget the true cause
is their own idleness and vice and want of commonsense.
Whoever is sober and industrious, honest and economical,
gets on.
Such a one had been and was Paddy O'Moore. He left
Dundalk, where he was starving, and came with his family
to Australia, landed at Adelaide, where, refusing employment as a miner, he got
engaged on a farm, and two months
afterward commenced clearing ground on his own account.
The whole territory of South Australia is divided into
lots, each containing eighty acres, and these are granted
to colonists by the government. Any industrious man, by
proper cultivation, can not only get a living out of his lot,
but lay by £80 a year.
Paddy O'Moore knew this. He profited by his own
former experience, and laid by every penny he could till
he had saved enough to purchase new lots. His family
prospered, and his farm also. The Irish peasant became
a landed proprietor, and though his little estate had only
been under cultivation for two years, he had five hundred
acres cleared by his own hands, and five hundred head of
cattle. He was his own master, after having been a serf
in Europe, and as independent as one can be in the freest
country in the world.
His guests congratulated him heartily as he ended his
narration; and Paddy O'Moore no doubt expected confidence for confidence, but he
waited in vain. However, he
was one of those discreet people who can say, "I tell you
who I am, but I don't ask who you are." Glenarvan's
great object was to get information about the Britannia,
and like a man who goes right to the point, he began at
once to interrogate O'Moore as to whether he had heard
of the shipwreck.
The reply of the Irishman was not favorable; he had
never heard the vessel mentioned. For two years, at least,
no ship had been wrecked on that coast, neither above nor
below the Cape. Now, the date of the catastrophe was
within two years. He could, therefore, declare positively
that the survivors of the wreck had not been thrown on
that part of the western shore.
Now, my Lord," he added, "may I ask what interest
you have in making the inquiry?"
This pointed question elicited in reply the whole history
of the expedition. Glenarvan related the discovery of the
document, and the various attempts that had been made
to follow up the precise indications given of the whereabouts of the unfortunate
captives; and he concluded his
account by expressing his doubt whether they should ever
find the Captain after all.
His dispirited tone made a painful impression on the
minds of his auditors. Robert and Mary could not keep
back their tears, and Paganel had not a word of hope or
comfort to give them. John Mangles was grieved to the
heart, though he, too, was beginning to yield to the feeling
of hopelessness which had crept over the rest, when suddenly the whole party
were electrified by hearing a voice
exclaim: "My Lord, praise and thank God! if Captain
Grant is alive, he is on this Australian continent."