Chapter III: The Family Visit the Theatre

In the evening the family met together round the hotel tea-table. Peter and Tilly supplied the greater part of the conversation. All the fresh incidents and impressions they had to relate would alone have filled a book of fair dimensions. Old John himself was silent, and seemed in a melancholy mood. Mrs. Dashwood shared his reflective spirits, and sat as one over whom a cloud of gloom was resting heavily. At intervals, when appealed to to settle some point of difference, old John would grunt “h’m” or “hoh!”

“Any letter from William to-day?” James, who harboured a suspicion that something had gone wrong away back at the farm, enquired of his parent.

“Noh, noh; not to-day, lad, not to-day,” was the reply. And, leaning back in his chair old John seemed to become deeply absorbed in the senseless chatter, and the bowing and pawing of the bare-necked, white-fronted group of superior people who occupied the adjoining table. But in reality he neither heard nor saw one of them.

“How did you get on with Mr. Staunton, father; did you see him?” Peter asked abruptly.

Mrs. Dashwood, who was already in her husband’s confidence as regards the day’s doings, turned her eyes sympathetically upon old John.

Peter repeated the question, and the absent-minded parent came to his senses with a start.

“Ah-h! oh! Ah-h yes; I seed him, lad!” he answered, clumsily striving to treat the question in his most natural way.

“Father and Mr. Staunton had a good fly round together, I’ll be bound,” Tilly ventured, playfully, and added, with a deep sigh: “Oh, I’d just love to be a man in a big city!”

Peter drained a glass of ginger-beer, and, setting the glass down, chuckled:

“Yes; you’d make such a splendid man, you would, Til. Ha! ha! Remember when you put on James’s trousers?”

Tilly scowled at her brother, and then choked back a giggle.

“Sh!” Polly said, nudging Peter, “don’t let people hear you, you silly!”

“Well, she might make a good enough man,” Maria growled, “for she ain’t such a great success at what she is, or someone would be wanting her before this.”

“Well I won’t be afraid to refuse the first one that _does_ come along lest I should never get another, Maria!” Tilly fired back, with blood in her cheeks.

Just here a waiter, plying for custom, broke in on them.

“No more for me,” old John said, and the rest of the family nodded their heads in the negative. The waiter bowed like a willow stick, and fluttered off on his rounds.

“Are we going to th’ play to-night, father?” Peter asked, folding his serviette anyhow.

Old John shook his head dismally and mumbled: “Ah-h dern’t know, lad!” and Tilly said she “guessed father would be going out somewhere with Mr. Staunton.”

Old John stared pathetically at his daughter.

“I think father has seen all he will ever want to see of Mr. Staunton,” Mrs. Dashwood remarked, meaningly.

The family began to “smell a rat,” and looked hard and wonderingly at their downcast parent.

“Ah! H’m!” murmured old John, and rising, once more led the way from the noisy, busy dining-room.

They all ascended in the lift together, and, arriving at No. 2 floor, collected in a circle at one end of the luxuriantly furnished sitting-room. Then by degrees, and in disjointed fragments, full particulars of the episode in which Will Staunton played such an interesting part were passed from one to the other, and feelingly discussed.

“And do you mean to say the old scoundrel was going to hit you with a chair, father?” James asked, with an angry frown on his face.

“Well, Ah thenk he would ’a’ done, lad!” old John answered quietly.

“And fancy that Willie Staunton pulling father down on the floor!” Tilly flared. “I could wring his neck!”

Polly summed the Staunton family up as “a bad lot,” and reckoned they weren’t worth talking about.

“Did you say as someone wer’ _shot_, my dear?” Granny enquired of Polly. But no one was in the humour to go into details in the interests of Granny.

“By Xmas! I wish I’d been there!” Peter broke out, with fight in his eye. “I’d have settled mister Bill Staunton.”

“It mighn’t be too late yet,” James remarked, with a quiet, no-confidence smile at his brother.

“By Xmas I would!” Peter said louder.

“It would be just as effective to-morrow,” James drawled advisedly.

“No mistake I would!” Peter repeated.

“We might come across him before we leave town,” James suggested knavishly.

“Who th’ deuce is Bill Staunton, I’d like to know!” Peter stormed, unmindful of James.

James winked at Tilly.

“Well, Peter,” Tilly said, “really, you just look as if you _would_ hit somebody.”

“Oh, well,” Maria growled, as she danced the baby up and down, “I’m glad it’s happened for my part; we won’t have to be bothered calling on them now, and they never did like to see anyone come with a baby to their place, anyway!”

A porter, with his hair beautifully arranged for the evening, and a silver tray in his hand, entered the sitting-room and stared about from guest to guest.

“Mr. Dashwood?” he said, addressing a sour, grizzled-featured, bald-headed old swell who sat by himself, scowling on all around him.

The bald-headed one shook his head. Our friends all turned their faces towards the porter. “Ah-h, here,” cried old John, catching his eye. And those hotel porters _have_ eyes! The reputation enjoyed by the Australian aboriginal for seeing things early is a fraud in comparison to the quickness of _their_ vision.

Gliding lightly and gracefully across the crowded room, the porter placed a card in old John’s hand.

“The gentleman is waiting to see you down stairs, sir,” he said; “most important.”

Old John stared at the card: Mrs. Dashwood stared at it; the whole family crowded round and stared at it.

“Mr. Robert Staunton, ah-h,” murmured old John.

The family looked at each other.

“Wants to see you?” said Peter.

“Perhaps Will is with him,” James remarked; looking meaningly at Peter.

“Don’t you go, father; don’t you,” Polly and Tilly advised earnestly, and Mrs. Dashwood murmured: “Don’t mind him.”

“What answer, sir?” from the porter, who was becoming restless.

“Well, _noh_!” blustered old John; “Ah won’t see him.”

“Tell him you’re not in, sir?” suggested the porter, from force of habit.

“But Ah _em_ in,” cried old John. “Yow tell him Ah dersent want to have ennerthin’ more to do with th’ lahkes o’ him.”

The porter smiled. “Yessir,” he said, and glided off again.

“Did yer ever hear th’ lahkes o’ thet!” said old John, tearing the card to pieces. “Noh! Ah’m done wi’ Robert Staunton. Ah’m done wi’ him.”

For quite a while the family sat in silence.

“Have you been to the theatre to hear ‘In Australia’ yet, Mr. Hall-Smith?” a female voice rang out across the room.

“Bai Jove! Ai reallay am ashamed Ai hev not, Miss Brown,” came the answer, “but Ai’m told it’s awfullay delightful.”

“Terribly funnay,” from a second female. “We were there the naight His Excellency attended, and we literally screamed the whole taime.”

Our friends from the country looked enquiringly into each other’s faces.

“That’s where we should go to-night,” Peter said, and Polly and Tilly quickly approved of his suggestion.

Mrs. Dashwood looked kindly at old John, and thought it would do him a world of good to go out for an hour or two and forget unpleasant things.

Old John brooded on in silence a while longer; then, as though his senses had suddenly returned, said with a glow of enthusiasm:

“Ah-h, why not; the whole lot on us. You too, Maria.”

Polly and Tilly cast an anxious glance towards Maria, with a hope in their wildly-beating hearts that their married sister, with the squawking encumbrance, would elect to remain behind and take care of the hotel. But to their chagrin Maria was delighted with the idea. She hadn’t seen a play “since Joe Miller’s niggers performed in the goods-shed at Chatswood,” but they would have to wait until she “put another dress on the baby.” She went off and put another dress on the baby; also an extra pink ribbon or two on herself. And when all were ready Maria was curious to know if the baby would understand anything of the play. Polly nudged Tilly, and Tilly nudged Polly; then they all hurried down the stairs, dragging each other after them.

* * * * *

The Company’s manager, the courteous “Goody,” smiled a droll sort of smile as he turned to watch the last of old John’s numerous party trail in at the door of the theatre.

They were late. The play was in full swing when they entered, and the trouble they had to discover seats for themselves exasperated a section of the audience. City people take their “theatres” as they take themselves, seriously. They called upon the late comers to “sit down” before they could see where to sit, or what to sit on.

“Don’t yow be in a hurry,” old John called back to them. “We got plenty to sit on, but where to put it be th’ trouble.” This caused a laugh, which brought a number of people at distant parts of the house to their feet. They seemed to think the play had shifted venue and that they were missing some of it. Others then followed their stupid example till the whole audience, except those near by, were staring in the direction of our country friends.

“Why didn’t yer bring th’ plough with yer?” enquired a thin voice from a dark corner of the pit, and a burst of merriment rang out in that quarter. Finally, however, our friends all sank down out of sight. Then Granny, thinking she was at home on the farm, started to make more trouble. At the top of her wheezy voice she desired to know if Mrs. Dashwood was “quite comfortable,” and if she was “sitting in a draught.”

“Oh, dry up!” came from the seat behind; and Polly and Tilly took Granny in hand to silence her. But they were up against a difficult proposition.

“Have yow th’ little yun wrapped well up, my dear?” she enquired of Maria. Then Maria began a conversation with her on the amiable characteristics of the infant.

“Order! Order!” commanded a number of angry people, and one was heard to growl: “They’ve come to the wrong shop; it’s at Dunwich they ought to be!”

Tilly pinched Granny hard to suppress her, but only provoked her to loud remonstrance. She rebelled in a sharp, squeaky voice and addressed her grand-daughter in an incoherent sort of way.

“Put them out!” came from away back in the pit, while a voice that seemed affected by a bad cold cried; “Sit on their chest!”

“Oh, ain’t it awful!” Tilly murmured to Polly, and old John at last shook Granny hard, and warned her to be silent, by holding up his big finger and shaking it close to her nose.

Then Granny settled down, and the family fixed its eyes on the play.

A bush scene was before them. An old selector in his shirt sleeves, and with large patches on his pants, was wildly haranguing his daughter into marrying the fellow for whom she had no love.

“You’re mad—mad as a March hare,” he exclaimed. “Could you compare the two men, could you? Is there any comparison between them?”

“No, there is not, father,” the girl answered, looking very love-sick and pretty, “Jim is poor, and hard-working and good-looking and honest, and—and—he _loves_ me.”

“Well, and what is th’ _hother_?” yelled the boisterous match-making parent.

“Oh, well, he’s an Inspector of Police, father, that is all.”

The old selector walked at racing-pace up and down the boards for several turns and threw his sledge-hammer fists wildly about before he spoke again.

“That is all, eh?” he yelled. “Where’s his big screw, and his hinfluence in th’ country, eh? Ain’t he got them?” He walked up and down again, and, when he got tired, paused before the girl, and bellowed: “Damnation to it! are yer goin’ to have him—yes or _no_?”

“_No_, a thousand times no, father!”

“Then _damn_ yer! yer’ll have to!” and off he went again in a canter.

Just here the person involved, the uniformed Inspector himself, entered in a most unexpected sort of way.

“God bless me, Inspector,” said the artful old selector, suddenly becoming as cheerful-looking as a bridal party, “it’s you, is it? Why, we was just talkin’ about you and sayin’ how long it is since you were here,” and he nearly wrung the official’s arms out.

At this period of the performance Peter thought “it up to him” to have a laugh. And a man sitting in front of him who received the full blast of the mirth in his right ear looked round and said: “Steady, old man!”

“Well, I hope I am not intruding,” spoke the brilliant Inspector, with one eye on the girl, “but an important case which I have in hand, in this locality brings me here at this late hour.” Here he gazed at the audience and sighed: “Ah, what a divine creature! If she will only be mine!” Then he faced the old selector’s daughter, and bowed profusely to her, and addressed her as “Kate,” and assured her of the pleasure it gave him to find her looking so cheerful and well. “Kate” bowed coldly and stiffly to him, and plunged a needle into a scrap of calico she was supposed to be sewing.

“A case in this district, eh, Inspector?” the old selector said, fussing round.

“Yes. Some rascals have been slaughtering Grey’s cattle for him, and doing it pretty clumsily, too, I can tell you.”

“Yer don’t tell me,” gasped the old selector.

“Quite true, confound them! We came across the head of one scratched out of the ground by the dingoes, and the tail of another in an old fire.”

The old selector thought he saw some humour in it, and said:

“Heads you win and tails they lose, eh, Inspector, ha! ha! ha!”

“Well, win or lose, I’m making a house to house investigation and asking them all to turn out what hides they’ve got about their places.”

“Well, I’ll very soon show yer mine,” said the old selector, and off he bolted. At the door he paused and observed to the audience: “I’ll give them plenty of time ter themselves. That’s all he’s after.”

Then, while the audience breathed heavily, the Inspector addressed himself affectionately to the daughter.

“I hope she won’t have him!” Tilly murmured excitedly into Polly’s ear, and at the same moment something went wrong with Maria’s baby. It squealed without giving any warning of its intention, and Maria shook it, and “cooed” and crooned to it. “Sit on it!” cried a disagreeable individual. “Chuck it out!” another, with no sympathy for children, advised. Maria scowled all round like a lioness at bay, and said: “I’d like to see any of you try it!” A great number of silly people laughed, and Mrs. Dashwood pulled at Maria and told her to take no notice, which Maria did forthwith.

“Why this silence, why are you so cold to me, Kate? Have you not one little word of love for me? Ah-h!” and the Inspector went through a series of tragic antics peculiar to people who love to excess. But it was no use. All the response he could extract from the girl was a long, far away sigh. The Inspector tugged at his sleeves and displayed symptoms of desperation.

“Then you refuse my love?” he yelled in a violent outburst.

Kate answered with a faint bow.

“Ah-h-h! Then you love another?”

“Yes, she loves another!” came unexpectedly from the hero of the play, who strolled in and calmly confronted the Inspector. “And what have you to say to him?”

The official one was knocked all of a heap for a second or two.

“Oh, Jim!” gasped the girl, clutching at space.

“Scoundrel!” yelled the disappointed Inspector, “who admitted you here?”

Jim drew out and delivered the police his best punch, and knocked him longways across the sofa. Then, while the audience cheered and hurrayed and laughed, Jim took Kate in his big, hairy arms and hugged her. He enjoyed the hugging process so much, and kept to it so long, that the prostrate Inspector was given time to regain consciousness and to calmly consider what was best for him to do. He considered the best thing to do was to draw his revolver. And, notwithstanding that Peter called lustily to him to “look out,” Jim neglected to turn his head until requested in a triumphant voice by the Inspector to “leave this house or die the death of a villain!” When he did turn he found himself looking down the barrel of the regulation revolver.

The audience clutched each other for support. Polly and Tilly closed their eyes. “Oh, my God!” Maria said, “he’s going to shoot!”

Then the awful suspense was broken by Jim calmly spitting into the barrel, and defying the revolver to go off. A loud yell of delight rang out, and Jim spat into the barrel again. Then down went the curtain.

“Ah-h, he’s a proper Hostralian, that cove!” old John observed, as he wiped the excitement from his brow with a handkerchief.

Then the light was turned full on, and a murmur of voices filled the house as the audience began to converse freely with itself.

In the babel of tongues about our friends a female voice was heard to say, in a grievous way:

“Fancy bringing a baby in arms to a theatre! How ridiculous!” Maria turned her head quickly and located the owner of that voice.

The proprietor of it was a lady with a long, lean neck, and a bare, bony chest. She looked through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that were secured to some part of her by a magnificent chain, and she sat up very straight and dignified behind a fan that would have made a peacock weep with envy.

“If you had one like it,” Maria said, straight at her, “you’d bring it, too; but I don’t suppose you ever had one, or ever will,” and concluded by making an ugly face.

The lady with the long, bare neck screened her blushing face behind the gorgeous fan, and whispered things into the ear of a male companion. Tilly and Polly both tugged at Maria, and threatened to leave and return to the hotel if she “went on like that any more.” Maria growled audibly to herself and hugged the precious infant closer to her bosom.

“Chocolates here! One shilling a box!” cried a youthful vendor of sweets, pushing his way between the rows of seats.

“Got a shilling, father?” Peter whispered to his parent.

“Ah-h!” answered old John, pushing his fist into his pocket.

Peter beckoned the youth along, and plunged into the chocolates. Old John paid for them with a half sovereign.

“She’s enjoyin’ herself, mister,” the chocolate boy said, with a grin at Granny. Old John glanced quickly at the aged one and discovered she was fast asleep.

The boy laughed sociably.

“Wake up, moother!” said old John, giving Granny a shake; “it’s going to begin agen now!”

Granny declined to wake up.

“Don’t you disturb her, mister,” the boy said advisedly; “she won’t miss anythink!”

“Yes; leave her, John,” Mrs. Dashwood urged; “she’ll be all right!”

John left her, and the boy moved off without leaving any change.

Then the curtain rose again, and showed to the world some more of the Australian bush. It was a wild, grand sort of scene. A mountain pass in all its ruggedness stood within several feet of the audience. Wild birds were calling and whistling and laughing among the mountains. A police constable and two black-trackers were pitching a camp at the mouth of the mountain pass. All their baggage and accoutrements lay about. The audience murmured in admiration.

“It’s too bad to let her miss all on it,” old John said, and made another attempt to wake Granny. But the effort was futile.

One of the black-trackers stared up into the foliage above his head, and said: “Moomoomby.” His brother tracker shook his woolly head, and contradicted him: “Baal, moomoomby,” he jabbered. “That pfellow petebroo.” Then they argued the point until the constable tossed an empty billy-can at their feet and hollered:

“Shut ye’s jabbering jaw and go and fill that at the creek. Hurry up, or befure we have the tea ready the Inspector will be here, and there’ll be th’ divil to pay.”

“You been fetch it, Charlie,” the first tracker grumbled, shunting the job on to his brother. “I been bring it water alonga dinner-time.”

Charlie also demurred.

“Oh, by cripes,” he growled, “I been bring it water last night two times twice.”

The audience laughed at the simple humour of its countrymen.

“Go arn wid y’; the two of ye,” thundered the constable. “Y’ pair o’ lazy divils. All ye’re good fer is stuffin’ ye’re skin, and shleepin’. And look here, when I think of ud: Let ye’s keep me awaake to-night the way ye’s did larst night wid ye’re snorin’ like pigs, and be my soul I’ll put a hot fire-stick up ye’re noshtrils!”

Howls of delight from every part of the house.

“You been do that,” said Charlie; “we couldn’t smell it no more to make it a livin’ for our missis, and we get it compersation then from it Labour Party.” (Yells of laughter from the “fat” section of the house.)

“Oh, my word, yes,” Norman said, in confirmation, “we get it plenty pfellow compersation then all right for not bein’ able to smell it track no more,” and both niggers laughed and grimaced like children.

“Shmell a thrack!” snarled the constable, “the only thrack ever I knew ye’s to shmell wer’ th’ thrack of a damper, or a lump o’ beef. Go arn wid ye’s and fetch the water, or I’ll kick ye’re ribs in!” and he aimed a place kick with his number ten at Charlie, which went wide of the mark. (More joy for the audience, during which Peter wriggled in a sort of fit across the knees of his parent and kicked Granny back into the land of the living again for several seconds.) Charlie started off, billy in hand, and, hanging over the edge of the stage while Norman held him by the two legs, dipped some water out of the creek.

“Now, gather plenty o’ wood fer th’ night!” ordered the constable, “so as we won’t be scratchin’ about in th’ dark forrit, and be pickin’ up shnakes.”

“By cripes!” gasped Charlie, suddenly becoming reminiscent, “I been pick it up two big pfellow snakes one night.”

“Ye’s did, yer black divil! And what did ye’s do?”

“By cripes, I been-jump it nearly into th’ plurry moon,” answered Charlie. And the laugh he raised would have emptied a hospital.

“Well, be th’ saints above,” said the constable, “I wish ye’d pick one up now!”

Charlie proceeded cautiously to collect wood. As he bent down Norman threw a stick, which fell at his feet. Charlie, with snakes on his mind, took fright. He bounded into the air like a piece of whalebone, then stared about suspiciously. The audience entered into the joke with enthusiasm. Satisfied nothing had attacked him Charlie continued to scrape up more wood. As he stooped again a snake of tremendous dimensions gradually lowered its length from the limbs above till its large head, with wide, open mouth, was within a foot of Charlie’s woolly head. (The audience started to get excited, while Norman fled at sight of the reptile and took refuge behind the constable.) Charlie filled his arms with sticks, then straightened up. His head bumped into the dangling boa-constrictor. He looked up quickly to see what was there. He saw what was there, and dropped his bundle to the accompaniment of an unearthly yell. The snake concluded the time was ripe to commence operations. It commenced by falling in a number of long, heavy coils upon Charlie, and winding itself around him. Talk about excitement! A wild, desperate struggle started off, and rolled itself several times across the stage. The audience began to kneel on each other’s shoulders.

“Don’t y’ think we had better get out of here, father?” Peter cried, with fright and frenzy in his rolling eyes. Old John didn’t hear him.

The struggle for life on the one hand, and for a meal on the other, continued to roll across the stage. The constable seized a rifle, and, pointing it in the direction of the danger, sat prepared to defend himself. The snake coils slackened and Charlie slipped out into the fresh air. He lay full length on his stomach, exhausted. The snake struck a similar attitude. Their heads were near each other’s. They glared at each other. Charlie groaned. The snake opened its mouth. Charlie gazed far away into the recesses of its lengthy interior. He groaned more. (“Oh, we’d all better go; it’s going to swallow him!” came apprehensively from Maria). Something seemed to go wrong with the reptile internally. It suddenly developed several bulging compartments along its stomach. It was all stomach. It opened its mouth wider—still wider. It struggled, strained, wriggled and contorted; then a kangaroo rat jumped out of him, and raced for dear life across the stage. (Yells of surprise from the house.) Then “bang!” went the constable’s rifle and the rat fell just as it was in the act of jumping upon the orchestra. Such howls and yells and jeers as followed were never heard in any play house before. And before the people could calm themselves the snake let loose two half-bald old ’possums upon the evening. “Bang! bang!” from the constable’s rifle, and both ’possums lay shivering on their backs.

“Well, damme!” said John Hop (popping more cartridges into the magazine) “if this ain’t th’ besht bit of spoort I’ve had since I jined the foorce!”

Then the voice of Charlie was heard to call out in feeble pleading tones:

“Oh, why you not been shoot it th’ plurry snake!”

“I wud,” cried the constable, “but how do I know there isn’t a mahn in him, and twud be manslaughter!”

But Mrs. Dashwood had reached the limit. She could stand no more of that play.

“I’m going!” she said, rising; “I’m going. Some one will be shot, and it might be one of us!”

Maria, in the interests of her offspring, agreed with her mother.

“Just as yer like,” old John said, and off they all went.