The Project Gutenberg eBook, Missing Friends, by Thorvald Weitemeyer

Title: Missing Friends

Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)

Author: Thorvald Weitemeyer

Release Date: June 13, 2011 [eBook #36399]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISSING FRIENDS***

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THE ADVENTURE SERIES.
Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 5s.

1.
Adventures of a Younger Son. By E. J. Trelawny. With an Introduction by Edward Garnett. Second Edition.

2.
Robert Drury's Journal in Madagascar. Edited by Captain S. P. Oliver.

3.
Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp. With an Introduction by H. Manners Chichester.

4.
The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown.

5.
The Buccaneers and Marooners of America. Being an Account of the Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish Main. Edited by Howard Pyle.

6.
The Log of a Jack Tar; or, The Life of James Choyce. With O'Brien's Captivity in France. Edited by V. Lovett Cameron, R.N.

7.
The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto. With an Introduction by Arminius Vambéry.

8.
The Story of the Filibusters. By James Jeffrey Roche. To which is added the Life of Colonel David Crockett.

9.
A Master Mariner. Being the Life and Adventures of Captain Robert William Eastwick. Edited by Herbert Compton.

10.
Kolokotrones, Klepht and Warrior. Edited by Mrs. Edmonds. Introduction by M. Gennadius.

11.
Hard Life in the Colonies. Compiled from Private Letters by C. Carlyon Fenkins.

(OTHERS IN THE PRESS.)

MISSING FRIENDS,

BEING THE ADVENTURES
OF A DANISH EMIGRANT
IN QUEENSLAND (1871-1880)

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE. MDCCCXCII

INTRODUCTORY.

was born in Copenhagen in the year 1850. My father was a builder there in moderately good circumstances. I was the second son of a large family, and it was my parents' great ambition that we all should receive a good education. My eldest brother was intended for a profession, and I was to be, like my father, a builder, and to take up his business when old enough to do so.

My father ruled us with an iron hand. I am sure he had as much love for us all as most fathers have for their children, but it was considered necessary when I was twenty years old to treat me as boys of ten are ordinarily treated. During the time I learned my trade in my father's shop I never knew the pleasure of owning a sixpence. After I had learned my trade, it was just the same. I worked for my father and received my food, clothes, and lodging as before, but I never dared to absent myself for a quarter of an hour even without asking permission, and that permission was as often refused as granted. A rebellious feeling kept growing up in me; but I dared not ask my father to relax a little and give me more liberty. To assert my independence before him seemed just as impossible, and yet my position had become to me unbearable. There was but one thing to do, viz., to run away, and I had scarcely conceived this idea before I carried it into execution.

I was now twenty-one years old. One evening, after saying good-night to my parents in the usual orthodox fashion, I went to my room, and when all was still, crept downstairs again and left the house. I had a bundle of clothes with me and a watch, which I pawned next morning. I forget the exact amount I received for it, but to the best of my recollection it was the first money I ever possessed, and it seemed to me a vast sum to do with just as I liked. I dared not to stay in Copenhagen for fear of meeting my father, or somebody who knew me, so I bought a through ticket for Hamburg the same day, and although the purchase of this ticket nearly exhausted my funds, it was with a feeling of glorious freedom that I left Copenhagen. On arriving in Hamburg I obtained work at my trade without difficulty, and soon saved a little money, so that a few months after I found myself on board an emigrant ship bound for Queensland, where I have been ever since; but for fourteen years I never wrote home. After that interval I sent a short letter to my eldest brother, telling him that I was in Queensland, married, in good health, my own master, but that I had not made my fortune; however I owed nobody anything, and was satisfied, &c., and asked only for news.

By return of mail came two letters, one from my father and the other from my brother. My brother wrote that our father was now getting to be an old man, and that his one sorrow these many years had been what had become of me, coupled with the fear that I did not remember him as a loving father; that he had always acted as he