CHAPTER X. ALFRED GOES TO AUSTRALIA
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CHAPTER X
ALFRED GOES TO AUSTRALIA
O land of the gold-garnished reef
And the sheep-studded plain.
---DOUGLAS B. W. SLADEN.
TOWARDS the end of 1846, I decided to go to Australia. Two very trustworthy young men named James and Thomas Magarey (one of whom had worked for me during the short time I had a baking business in New Zealand), who had come out as steerage passengers in the "Fifeshire," and, who, like myself, had been brought up to the milling business, had gone to Adelaide, where they had found it very easy to make money. They wrote to me, strongly advising me to follow them. This I made up my mind to do, and my friend, Isaac Hill, decided to go with me. We took our passage in the "Star of China," one of the very small ships that traded between Sydney and New Zealand, and were so fortunate as to reach Sydney in nine days.
Directly I stepped upon the wharf at Sydney I met an engineer named Ryder, who had been employed in Nelson by the New Zealand Company's agent to put up a flax-mill. He told me that he was now employed by the wealthy owner of a large steam-plant-mill who was most anxious to get a first-class stone-dresser who was not a convict. I said that I was on my way to Adelaide, but meant to spend a few months in Sydney, and should be glad if I could get some employment whilst I was there. He replied that Mr Barker would give £38 a month to a first-class stone-dresser. He asked me to go with him to see Mr Barker, and I did so at once, as he was to be found in his counting-house only between twelve and two o'clock. Up to that time, I had not seen much of very sharp business men, but I knew that I had one before me now. I can best picture him by relating the dialogue that passed between us.
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Mr Barker: You are a stone-dresser, I believe?
Alfred: Yes.
Mr Barker: Have you dressed stones in any first-class mill?
Alfred: My father owns the two largest mills in Bath, and two smaller ones, and I have dressed stones in them all.
Mr Barker: In Bath--but you have just come from New Zealand, haven't you?
Alfred: Yes.
Mr Barker: Have you dressed stones in New Zealand?
Alfred: There are no stones there to dress.
Mr Barker: How long have you been in New Zealand?
Alfred: Nearly five years.
Mr Barker: Then you have not dressed a stone for five years. Have you any character, or what we call a discharge?
Alfred: No; I could hardly get that from my father. I have letters of introduction to the Governor of New Zealand and from the Chief Surveyor of Nelson (and I presented these letters to him).
Mr Barker: I wonder how much they know about stone-dressing!
He held the letters in his hand without looking at them, and said:
"Ah, well! You had better come over to the mill."
In the mill, we found a stone lying on its back, all ready for dressing, the tools for doing so lying beside it. Pointing to the stone, he said:
"Just dress a few harps of that stone, and I will be back again in a little more than an hour."
Then, putting the letters down on the stone, he walked away. When he came back, he put on his spectacles and looked carefully at what I had done. Then, taking up the letters, he handed them to me without reading a word of them, and, pointing to the stone I had dressed, he said:
"That is the best letter of recommendation to me." Mr Barker was very kind to me, and put me up to
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all the tricks that he knew the convicts employed by him would try to play upon me. I stayed with him about two months, and then told him I must leave, as I had a great deal to do in getting fitted out for an overland journey to Adelaide. He asked me if higher wages would induce me to stay, and, when I answered "No," he begged me, as a special favour, to take the night work for a few weeks before I left him. He said he would make it well worth my while to do so, and that I could get what I wanted in Sydney in the daytime, if I would remain in the mill between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. To this I consented, and he helped me a great deal with my preparations, and paid me very liberally.
On the first night that I went to the mill, I found the overseer there, prepared to lock me in. I told him that I was not a convict, and would not be treated as one, to which he answered:
"I can't make fish of one and flesh of another."
"All right," I said, "lock up if you want to; but, if you do, you will lock me outside."
In high dudgeon, he hurried me off to Mr Barker, and laid the facts of the case before him. That gentleman said, very severely:
"Of course the door must be locked as usual; but," he added, looking at me with a smile, "if I ask Mr Monteith to give you the key, perhaps you will be kind enough to lock yourself inside the mill instead of out of it."
Before very long the preparations for my journey were complete, and it was time for me to say good-bye to Mr Barker. I was sorry to leave him, as there was a great deal to be learned from such a man.
