“Your last question is, however, a fair one, and I will answer it frankly on condition it is the last. So far as I am aware, then, my son has not already, nor (to my knowledge) has he ever had, a wife. I should say he is quite capable of having half-a-dozen. However, this is not ‘ it’ at all. And I must beg you as a gentleman not to question me any further upon what is in fact a family matter, and one only named to you in confidence for your own guidance.
“Upon this understanding I have the honour to remain, sir, your obedient servant, —
“EMILIUS DAINTREE.”
What could it be? What had he done? Something terrible in his youth — but what?
Mr. Harding tried to smooth his troubled conscience. The feelings of a parent were tossing and tormenting his spirit as they had never done before. Yet the feelings of a parent were apt to lead one to extremes — to a tender over-anxiety in his own case — to a bitter and relentless requital in that of the elder Daintree. Was the latter the first father who had deemed his son’s folly a crime, and never forgiven it? “A handful of wild oats,” thought Mr. Harding; it could be nothing worse.
But he did not think so in his heart, for Sir Emilius was notoriously no squeamish moralist himself; and then there were those flowers that had not been allowed to lie a single day on Lady Daintree’s grave.
Moreover, Mr. Harding had been granted lately some gleams of independent insight into the character of the younger Daintree; and these to his cost; yet he held his tongue.
He held his tongue to the last, and James Daintree sailed away the betrothed of Claire Harding, who was to follow him to Sydney in six months.
A year earlier Mr. Harding might have been tempted to keep silence for worldly reasons, for the sake of the connection— “my daughter, Lady Daintree” — and so forth. He was not himself a man of noble blood, but he loved the nobility, and had of late very nearly cut himself off from their smile for ever. The temptation, on worldly grounds alone, would have been strong enough the year before. Yet the father’s heart would have resisted it: he would have spoken out then, and acted, too, like an honest man. Now he did neither, because his mouth was stopped and his hands were tied by a stronger thing than social considerations. He was gagged and bound by abject fear.
And this was why Daintree the younger was allowed to sail away betrothed to Claire, towards the latter end of January, 1838.
He arrived in Sydney some four or five months later.
It was a mild, pellucid, winter’s day. Sky and harbour wore their ancient tint of magic blue; and as the luxuriant shores unfolded before the incoming vessel, headland and inlet, inlet and headland, each with its sash of golden sand, its cord of silver foam, the homing wanderer swept the water’s edge for his own bungalow, and found it with a real thrill. He had chosen well in his adopted land; it was one of milk and honey and perpetual sunshine. But even as they dropped anchor in Sydney Cove, there came through the clear air the clank of men at work in heavy irons near the quay; and the first person to greet Daintree in the streets was a magnate who stopped his carriage and alighted with the peculiar shuffle of one who had himself worn those heavy irons in his day. Daintree shook the gnarled, bedizened hand with an inward shiver; he had forgotten that his Canaan was an Egypt — a Land of Promise and of Bondage too.
He was on his way to the club; he went instead to the council-chamber in Macquarie Street, and obtained an interview with the Principal Superintendent of Convicts.
“There was a man called Erichsen sent out last year,” said Daintree. “Transported for life; have you ever come across his name?” And he was spelling it when the other gave a whistle.
“So you’re interested in him, are you?” cried the Superintendent. “My dear sir, that’s one of the prettiest young villains in the Colony. If we all had our rights he’d have swung long ago.”
“I believe him to be an innocent man,” said Daintree, warmly. “I am positive he never committed the crime he was transported for.”
“I know nothing about that,” replied the Superintendent. “He’s made up for it out here, if that’s so. But you shall see his record for yourself.”
And in perhaps the ghastliest ledger ever kept, wherein every entry was a human tragedy, and that of Erichsen but one among thousands, his single champion now read the curt official version of the following facts.
PART II. THE LAND OF BONDAGE
CHAPTER XXI
AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
THE capital sentence on the convict Erichsen having been commuted to one of transportation for life, he was transported to New South Wales, where he arrived, in the official phrase, per Seahorse, in the early morning of Tuesday, 5th December, 1837.
Some nineteen weeks before, still earlier in the morning, his draft had been chained together in gangs of six, and marched from Millbank across the road and down the stone steps to the tug, which conveyed them to the convict-ship then lying at the Nore.
The voyage was not the worst of Tom’s experiences. The first few days they were all in chains, and his leg became excoriated through dragging the cruel harness in and out of his hammock. But presently the chains were struck off, and Tom did not earn a second dose of them. He distinguished himself in no way on board; in the usual attempt to seize the ship he bore no part, nor was it Tom who betrayed the ringleaders and saved so many lives. Yet he was fortunate enough to win the fancy of the Surgeon Superintendent, who employed him privately during a great part of the passage. This officer was in absolute command of the convicts, and to Tom he was very kind indeed. So much so that at the very end of the voyage Tom asked the other to take his word between themselves that he was innocent. He never asked this of any man again. And the lovely harbour with the vernal shores said no more to his stinging soul than to that of the most hardened felon in the ship.
The exiles were landed and marched to Hyde Park Barracks, two hundred strong. It was quite early in the forenoon, yet the heat of the ground struck through their shoes, and the hot land-smell scorched their nostrils, as the ungainly detachment proceeded along the streets, all roving eyes and lurching sea-legs. Suddenly the air filled with a jingle as of inharmonious bells; and round a corner came a team of twenty men in grey and yellow patchwork, yoked to a waggon filled with stone and gravel; they had their chains to drag as well, and these made the mournful music wherever they went. One of the soldiers in charge of the newly landed draft chanced to catch Tom’s eye flashing misery and defiance. “Don’t you trouble your head about them,” cried he; “it’ll be your own fault, young fellow, if ever you come to that; there’s none on you need.”
Tom said nothing, but a convict near him called out, “I believe you, general! We’ve come out here to enjoy ourselves, and that’s what we mean to do.”
“And will, too!” said the soldier. “There’s plenty of us chaps would change shoes with you if we could,” he added below his breath; “assigned servants is more in demand than ever, and a good ‘un gets wages just the same as a free man. You’ll all be snapped up before you’ve been in barracks a day. No, this ain’t them; this is the ‘orspital; them’s the barracks, round the corner to the left.”
A high wall enclosed the sombre pile, which looked the more sinister against that sky of unfathomable blue. Immoderate sunshine and the tantalising proximity of the Governor’s pleasure-grounds put a point to the ominous contrast; and there were misgivings among those bold spirits that had looked forward to New South Wales as a land of exclusive cakes and ale.
“If they’re going to shut us up in there,” said one to another, “we might as well have stayed where we was in blessed old Noogit!”
“I tell you they won’t keep you above a day,” resumed the soldier. “And you’ll never see the place again unless you plays the fool and gets turned into Gov’ment. Them as does that comes back, of course, and has a bad time of it too. Hear that! Hear that!”
Over the wall, as the newcomers marched down one side of it, there came from the other a series of shrill scream
s; and ere they reached the gate, it was flung open, and out marched four men, carrying a fifth — screaming still — shoulder-high between them. The white face was turned to the sky, the naked trunk writhing in agony; and the blood was running out of the man’s boots as though he had been wading ankle-deep in it, while his leg-irons hung clanking from his legs.
“Aha!” said the soldier. “That’s a Tom-fool who’s got turned into Gov’ment, you see! They’re carrying ‘im across to the ‘orspital, ‘cause the cat’s been scratching of ‘im.”
“The cat?” cried Tom, who was trembling all over.
“Ay, my lad; the one with nine tails; ’tis the commonest breed out here!”
Tom never knew how his legs carried him through the barrack gates, and when the draft were drawn up within, and formally addressed there by the Deputy-Governor, he caught but little of the harangue. He felt deadly sick; his heart ached like a tooth; and for hours to come those piercing screams pursued his tingling ears. However, he supposed the punishment must have been timed expressly as a salutary warning for the newcomers; devoutly he hoped so; but he soon knew better. Next morning there were two floggings, and one again the morning after. It was, in fact, a daily detail at the Hyde Park Barracks, which were, on the other hand, the headquarters of several hundreds of the most desperate felons in New South Wales. Tom and his draft were only to remain there until assigned into private service, but the rest had all been “turned into Government” as unmanageable by their masters, and were in barracks for re-punishment. Their days were spent in road-gangs or in other organised labour about the town; and not a few of their nights in depredations winked at by the barrack officers. —
For the corruption of the place was as flagrant as the discipline was harsh. The very first night, when Tom was driven from his hammock by the fetid heat of the overcrowded dormitory, he witnessed an instructive incident from the window. It was the return of such a depredator, and the division of his spoil with the officer on duty. Tom soon learnt that burglaries and highway robberies were nightly occurrences in Sydney, and as often the work of convicts under nominal lock and key as that of the assigned servants who infested the streets after dark.
Meanwhile he was himself assigned to a resident in urgent quest of a “special,” or “gentleman convict,” as such as Tom were termed. The applicant was a genial greybeard, with a philosophic eye, which looked Tom well up and down at their interview.
“What I want,” said he, “is a tutor for my son. I hear you are a University man. May I ask what makes you stare?”
“I a tutor!”
“Well?”
“You can’t know what I was transported for.”
“Oh, yes, I do. I could wish it had been for something else, certainly; but that doesn’t make you any the less a University man. And the other specials seem to be a poor lot, and I mean to give you a trial. But we’ll drop that name of yours, which I’m afraid may be known in my house, and you shall start fair. In half an hour then, Jones, I shall call for you in my chaise.”
And Tom actually found himself quite a privileged member of a decent household before he had time to realise his good fortune. The other servants were ordered to treat him with respect. His pupil was put entirely in his charge. He had his meals with the family, and had revelled for one night in a deliciously clean bed and bedroom, when the master of the house came to him in the morning with a very wry face.
“It’s all up, Jones,” said that philosopher, with the blunt intimacy which had made Tom like him from the first. “My good wife has discovered who you are, and she refuses to leave her bed while you remain in the house. She has read of you in the English papers, confound them, and she simply won’t have you on the premises! It seems unreasonable when you consider that our cook was a bloodthirsty baby-farmer, our coachman a professional burglar, and so on right through the staff — habitual criminals every one — which I don’t think you are. Still there’s another side to it: there’s the boy to be considered, and though I think you’re the very man for him, a mother’s feelings must be studied in such matters. You see I like you well enough to be perfectly frank about the matter; but the fact is, the chaise is waiting for us outside.”
So ended that chapter, and Tom was back at barracks in time to hear the clank of the chain-gangs shuffling painfully out to work, and the swish and whistle of the morning lash. Those two instruments supplied the street-music of the convict city; there were few days and few hours when you might not hear their melancholy duet. To Tom the sound of it was still physical torture, the more unbearable after this cruel taste of better things. Nearly all his shipmates had been assigned and taken away in his absence. Only one other “special” was left, a London clerk transported for fraud. Tom’s late master (a friend of the Superintendent) was allowed to carry him off in Tom’s stead, and long afterwards the latter heard the curious sequel of his own misfortune: so thoroughly did his successor teach what he knew that both tutor and pupil were presently transported to Van Diemen’s Land for life.
The incident was sufficiently disheartening at the time, and yet it had its hopeful side. It revealed the possibilities of the assignment system, or rather its better possibilities, from the convict’s point of view. As a punishment it must needs prove a farce in a community which preferred to estimate convicts by their capacity as colonists, rather than by their crimes as felons. Such was Tom’s comforting reflection; for not yet did he realise how entirely the condition of the convict was dependent upon the character of the master; but having had one good master, though for so brief a period, he looked cheerfully for another.
The other, however, was slow to come. His false start seemed to tell against Tom with the authorities. They were in no hurry to assign him again, and presently he found himself the last man of his draft in the barracks, with his hammock the only one a-swing between the stanchions of the great dormitory upstairs. Then one morning he heard a row in the yard, and there was a very over-dressed, thick-set and thick-spoken young man abusing the officers because there were no convicts left.
“I tell you we applied for three, and I’ve come down expressly for them,” he spluttered out. “Over a hundred blessed miles I’ve come, from Castle Sullivan near the Hunter River, for two farm labourers and a groom, all properly applied for in lots of time. And just because I get a touch of the sun, and can’t come on the right day, I’m to go back empty-handed, am I? We’ll see about that. I’ll complain to the Board!”
“That won’t do no good. We’ve only one man left, and the Board can’t split ‘im into three.”
“Oh, you have one, have you? Haul him out and let’s have a look at the lubber.”
So Tom was produced to receive the unsteady scrutiny of a swimming blue eye that told a tale; and was informed with an oath that he was a “special,” and they wanted none of that kidney at Castle Sullivan.
Great was Tom’s relief, for a coarser face he had seldom seen; but at this the officials remarked that it was a “special” or nothing; and the bleared eyes were on him once more.
“Come from the country?”
“Yes.”
“Saddle a horse?”
“Yes.”
“And ride him after?”
“Better try me.”
“Well, so I will! You be ready in an hour and a horse’ll be ready for you. I’ll go back with a groom if with nothing else!”
“Wait!” said Tom.
“What’s up now?”
“I’m supposed to have committed a murder,” said Tom through his teeth. “In one family they wouldn’t keep me—”
The other drowned his words with a bellowing laugh.
“You wont be the only one at Castle Sullivan!” cried he. “We don’t mind what you’ve done, bless you, so long as you don’t try it on again up there! If you do—” and he jerked a great close-cropped head in the direction of the barrack triangles, while a bloated lower lip stuck out like a tongue between his short fair beard and moustache. “There never
yet was the lag that bested Nat Sullivan,” he added with another of his oaths; “and you don’t look the fool to try it on. So be ready in an hour sharp, or you look out!”
“Is he Nat Sullivan?” said Tom to the officers as the stout young man staggered off.
“Ay, ay,” said they; “that’s the celebrated Mr. Nat!”
“Celebrated?”
“They’re all that, you’ll find, are the Sullivans of Castle Sullivan. You wait and see. I sha’n’t say nothing to set you agen ‘em. But I wish you joy of each other; don’t you, Bill?”
Bill laughed, and Tom troubled them with no more questions.
Mr. Nat did not come in an hour; he came in three, swaying in his saddle, but still managing to lead a pack-horse and a horse for Tom. His blue eyes were now half-closed, and Tom understood him to curse the sun and to mutter something about a fresh touch that morning. They rode off, however, and were near the outskirts of Sydney when Mr. Nat rolled quietly out of his saddle and lay insensible in the middle of Brickfield Hill.
Tom was at his side in an instant. No bones were broken; he was simply fast asleep. Tom shook him up, and managed to get him to the nearest inn, where he again fell asleep, anathematising the sun, and so never stirred for hours.
And the convict-servant stood over the grunting carcass of his free master, and now he marvelled at the system which sought to accomplish the amelioration of the felon by trusting him in such hands as these. The thing had not even the excuse of an irregularity. There was a brand-new Government document sticking out of a pocket of the loud check coat, within a few inches of the bloated face, and Tom guessed rightly that it referred to himself. Then there had been more preliminaries than he had thought; but that only made matters worse, since what was a scandal in itself was immeasurably more scandalous as part and parcel of a System.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 91