Australian Tales - Setis

“Shove It on Board.”
“LET go the bow-line, and haul the stage ashore,” shouted the captain
of a steamer, on board of which I was a passenger some time ago.
“Hould on a bit, captain dear! Don't lave this little lock of corrn in me
carrt, and good luck to yez,” said a farmer on the wharf, looking up
imploringly at the captain on the paddle-box.
“I can't take it,” said the captain, decisively, “my decks are lumbered
up already, so that fat passengers can't get aft without climbing over the
bridge.”
“Arrah, captain, take this small lot; there's a dear man. Shure it won't
make much odds to yez; there's ony tin bags, an' it's mighty light corrn
too. I fetched it all the way from the farrm, onst afore, an' shure yer agent
her tould me it shud go this trip, anyhow. What'll I do at all if yez lave it
behind? Och captain, do take it, an I'll be everlastingly obliged to yez,
I'm going down wid it meself, an me bhoy Teddy for-bye. Shpake the
worrd now, honey, an long life to yez.”
“Shove it on board,” said the captain, “and bear a hand about it, or we
shall lose the tide, and be stuck on the flats all day. In with it — in with
it.”
While that colloquy was going on, I saw two men, in a boat alongside,
pushing a coop of fowls on board at the after gangway, unobserved by
the captain. In a short time we were paddling down the river, and the
crew were busy stowing the deck cargo, and extemporising a pen, or sty,
for a score or two of pigs, which would persist in making a noise,
although the sailors were using strenuous efforts to soothe them, by
beating their greasy backs with ropes' ends. Presently the steamer
stopped to take in an old lady from a boat, which had put off from one of
the farmsteads on the river bank.
“I can't take any cargo,” said the captain, as the boatman began to hand
up sundry packages.
“Bless my heart alive! I have only two small boxes of eggs, and a little
pig, and a keg of butter. You surely don't mean to say you won't take
them on board, captain? What room will they occupy? Tut, tut, can't take
them, that's all nonsense!”
“Shove 'em on board, missis, shove 'em on board,” said the second
mate, who was rewarded with a grateful glance from the old lady, while
at the same time she made some pettish remarks about the captain's ill