The morning that the little sea-port of Newcastle lay before us, I felt
as if I had been on tour through a strange world. For the first time the
story-books of my youth had come true.
But Hoppner rose from the camp fire that we'd been sleeping by,
stretched, and remarked, "now, thank Christ, I'll be able to find a good
seat in a pub again, just like in Sydney, and all the booze I can drink.
We can go to some sailors' boarding house here, tell them we want to
ship out, and they'll furnish us with the proper amount of drinks and
take care of us, all hunky dory, till they find us a berth on ship ...
of course they'll be well paid for their trouble ... two months' advance
pay handed over to them by the skipper ... but that won't bother me a
bit."
From the hill on which we lay encamped we saw all the ships in the
harbour. I no longer feared the sea. Your true adventurer forgets danger
and perils experienced as a woman forgets the pangs of childbirth.
* * * * *
We met a sailor on the street, who, though at first a stranger, soon
became our friend and, with the quick hospitality of the sea, steered us
to a pub known as the Green Emerald, bought us drinks, and introduced us
to Mother Conarty, the proprietress.
"I'll ship ye out all right, but where's your dunnage?"
We confessed that we had run away from our ships down at Sydney.
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