A Colonial Reformer, Vol. 3 (of 3)Boldrewood, Rolf
History
A Colonial Reformer, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Boldrewood, Rolf
Australia -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction
This was temporary anguish, mordant and keen, doubtless. But Time, the
healer, would certainly in a few days have set it straight. The fact
of an unknown lady and gentleman being indisposed at the commencement
of the voyage afflicts nobody. But here was apparently the finger of
the fiend. A ruffianly pilot, coming off in his hardy yawl, brought on
board a copy of the _Sydney Morning Herald_ of the day following their
attempted departure, in which it was duly set forth how, at St. James’s
Church, by Canon Druid, Jermyn, second son of Crusty Croker, Esq., of
Crankleye Hall, Cornwall, was then and there married to Augusta, only
daughter of the Rev. Cyril Neuchamp, incumbent of Neuchamp-Barton,
Buckinghamshire, England. Now the joke was out. Even under such
unpromising circumstances it told. Here were two mortals, passionately
devoted of course, and in that state of matrimonial experience when
all things tend to the wildest overrating, so cast down, so utterly
prostrated by the foul Sea Demon, that they positively did not care
a rush for each other. The great Jermyn lay, faintly ejaculating
‘Steward, Ste-w-a-ar-d,’ at intervals, and making neither lament nor
inquiry about his similarly suffering bride. As for Augusta, she had
scarce more strength of body or mind than permitted her to moan out,
‘I shall die, I shall die’; and apparently, for all she cared, in that
unreal, phantasmal, pseudo-existence, which only was not death, though
more dreadful, Jermyn Croker might have fallen overboard, or have been
changed into a Seedee stoker. Then for this to happen to Jermyn Croker,
of all people! The humour of the situation was inexhaustible!
And though the fierce south wind departed and the _Nubia_ drove
swiftly majestic across the long seas that part Cape Otway from the
stormy Leuwin, though in due time the spice-laden gales blew ‘soft
from Ceylon’s isle,’ and the savage peaks of Aden, the lofty summit of
the Djebel Moussa rose to view in the grand succession of historical
landscapes; yet to the last day of the voyage a stray question in
reference to the precise effects of very bad cases of sea-sickness
would be directed, as to persons of proved knowledge and experience, to
Mr. and Mrs. Jermyn Croker, by their fellow-passengers.
It is due to Mr. Croker, as a person of importance, to touch lightly
upon his after-career. His wife discovered too late that in reaching
England he had only changed the theme upon which his universal
depreciations were composed. ‘Non animam sed cœlum mutant qui trans
mare currunt.’ He abused the climate and the people of England with a
savage freedom only paralleled by his Australian practice. Becoming
tired of receiving 3 or 4 per cent for his money, he one day, in a fit
of wrath, embarked one-half of his capital in a somewhat uncertain
South American loan. His cash was absorbed, to reappear spasmodically
in the shape of interest, of which there was little, while of principal
it soon became apparent that there would be none.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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