The Hanging of Mary Ann

by Angela Badger

  Every evening Mary Ann basked in the contented glow which marked this precious moment in their hard-working days when the family came together. As knives and forks scraped upon plates and the tea cups chattered to the saucers she looked around the table and knew she loved every one of them.

  “And I just hope Mr Sowerby doesn’t take the opportunity to give us all one of his sermons,” her sister Elizabeth grumbled, her approaching wedding being the topic on everyone’s lips. “He never knows when to stop!”

  “Well, my dear, it’ll be the last for a long while. There won’t be another wedding till our Mary Ann’s turn. You won’t have to sit and listen to him when you’ve moved to Woodbury.” Grand-père firmly sliced the last of his mutton into neat pieces and regarded his granddaughter with a hint of disapproval.

  “He never stopped rabbiting on at our Hannah’s wedding, didn’t he? Went on and on he did, telling us how wicked we were not to be there regular every Sunday.”

  “He’s a good man. Many a wise word I’ve heard him speak.”

  “Well, as you say, it’ll be the last time... till our Mary Ann.”

  “And coming back to that, have you decided if you’ll use Hannah’s veil or…”

  As Mary Ann’s thoughts drifted and conversation flowed all around the table her fancy took flight and their faces gleamed with the transient glow of fish rising to the surface of the river, leaping for insects, snapping at any particle floating upon the water, as they snatched at every topic of conversation and bandied words around the table. All the while her grandfather sat nodding and listening, just like the wise old cod who lurked in the deep pool under the shade of the willow tree down by the river. Years and years of survival, eluding the hooks of the fishermen had honed that ancient fish to perfection. He had escaped the lures, he’d survived the droughts in the depths of the river and never allowed himself to be swept out when the deluges came and the waters spilled over every bank and spread across the countryside.

  Grand-père had survived so much, he’d escaped from the guillotine and come to this place and prospered. What was his secret? How had he turned the disaster of his life into such success?

  Mary Ann caught his gaze and they exchanged glances, the bond she shared with him was enduring and deep. Alone amongst the family she had inherited his spare features, the aristocratic bones and the dark, searching eyes. When she looked around at her siblings she knew she’d also inherited that fierce pride which they did not even begin to understand.

  “Well, it’s different for us,” her father muttered. “We don’t want to hear all about that… that King Louis, Queen Marie Antoinette and all that, it’s past. It’s gone for ever. Some things are best laid aside and forgotten.”

  “Forgotten! I tell you this my lad, no one is forgotten until the last person on earth no longer speaks his name.” Grand-père laid down his knife and fork and glared disapprovingly at his son.

  CHAPTER 3

  “He can’t go all that way on his own,” William muttered. “He’ll have Job with him.”

  “Keep your voice down, Elizabeth, his ears are that sharp.”

  “I know, I know, Papa, but Dr Morton says he must have some help. He says, if he falls, then how will he be able to get up. Job’s not always there. And even after the surgeon’s done his work, of course he can rest at Hannah’s, but still, on the return he’ll need someone beside him.”

  A pall of silence enshrouded the house. Year in and year out, each day had commenced with Grand-père making his way over to the stables, and just as surely the day ended when he nodded off over The Herald. Now he lay tight-lipped and sweating in his bed while the family muttered together, closeted in the parlour.

  “He needs help with everything he does. Five days on the road. You’ll have to go with him Papa.”

  “Impossible! If only this had happened last week, he could have had Charles for company. Place’ll go to rack and ruin if I’m away more than a couple of days. We are talking about weeks. And I can’t spare any of the lads for that length of time. Job’ll drive him, he’ll have to manage. You know it’s difficult enough to find anyone reliable these days. We need every hand to finish off those last two paddocks and then in two weeks’ time there’s that sale on. I have to be there, After that it’s…”

  “And I certainly can’t leave Woodbury for all that time. It’s just the same for all of us these days, but the fact remains, someone has to accompany Grand-père. What about Mary Ann, then?”

  William shook his head and frowned at his daughter. “Too young. She’s far too young.”

  “Times are changing, Papa, we’ve all grown up a lot faster than you and Uncle Richard did, just as you say yourself, times are harder. Why, she’s sixteen, she’s a strong girl – not given to the vapours and any fancies like that. Only last week I heard Job say she had to help him with one of the ewes, and he considered her as handy as any of the shepherds. Maybe she’s got her share of fancies and high falutin’ ideas but that girl’s got her feet on the ground. He just needs someone who’ll travel with him, keep him company and in good spirits and we know she does that alright. She’s always been his favourite. Mary Ann’s the one to go.”

  “Such a long journey! Oh, if only he hadn’t had that fall. Why didn’t he listen to us. Old folks get too stiff for the saddle. If only Sydney wasn’t so far away.”

  “We all know that, Papa, but if Dr Morton can’t undertake surgery of that kind then there’s nothing we can do about it. He’s got to take that journey. Mary Ann’ll look after him.”

  “It’s dangerous, remember that. If the rain comes then it’s the swollen creeks. Or what if the old coach meets a calamity - that coach wasn’t new when we got it and it’s done us proud, what if we lose a wheel on that road? You can be held up for days. And then of course there’s always the bushrangers. If her dear mamma was still alive I’m sure she’d forbid it.”

  “Well, she isn’t, is she?” Elizabeth muttered. Why was it always the women who had to make the decisions? Men were alright for matters on the property but they never seemed to get their thoughts straight when it came to the everyday things. “We have to do what’s best for the family and getting Grand-père to that surgeon’s the most important thing at the moment. And I say Mary Ann can well be spared. She’ll be beside him to fetch and carry and if he has a fall she can call on Job. She’s the obvious one. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll not be plagued with fancies or suffer from migraines or think every moving shadow’s a bushranger or a wild black! Let’s waste no more time. I’ll send a letter by the next mail.”

  “Well, I suppose if Job’s with her nothing much can go wrong.”

  For more years than the family could remember, Job had worked for the family. Everyone knew he’d lay down his life for them.

  He had been assigned to Richard Guise as a lad of seventeen, newly arrived in the Colony and wishing he were dead every minute of the day.

  Each night, lying amongst his fellows in the barracks, he tried to shut out the terrible new world where he found himself. Some said that when night blanketed the land in this awful place then it was daytime back in the old country, so he’d lie there screwing up his eyes and willing himself back amongst the spinneys and the hedgerows or on the banks of the stream which flowed through his valley far away in Dorset.

  That was exactly where he’d been taken, on the banks of the Tarrant, caught one moonlit night by squire’s gamekeeper, tickling a trout for Old Ma’s supper.

  All that had kept him sane was the remembrance of the fields, the cottages, the beechwoods and the river as it flowed past the villages in the valley on its way to the sea. His life had always been lived in the valley.

  Unschooled and untaught, Job had learnt all he knew from the old’uns, and what else did he need? A strong frame and willing hands which worked their way from year to year following the calendar of the seasons. Spring brought the wood anemones and the first fluttering of the birds from their nests. Summer was
ushered in by the lambs skipping along the time-honoured chalk trails cut into the side of the hills by generations of sheep stretching back beyond the Magna Carta. Chestnuts and mushrooms heralded in the coming of autumn, with the apples to pick and the last of the potatoes to dig up, but you had to be quick or Jack Frost would start painting his pictures on the window, the only glazed one in the cottage.

  Job had not realised there could be any other world. The horror nearly sent him out of his mind. How would he survive? Where would he find a place in this cursing, bullying, toadying world of thieves, murderers, cutthroats and just the plain shifting mass of unfortunates who’d taken to the wrong side of the law to survive. For he was sharp; he soon realised that many a soldier and sailor had been spewed out when they were no longer needed for good King George’s battles, then added to the huge mass of those who were being put out of their traditional work by machines. Dorchester gaol was overflowing and he was lucky not to have been executed. He’d shivered through many a night as he’d lain in his cell, listening to the whispered stories. Boys as young as fourteen were hanged, even if the gaoler had to tie bricks on their feet for the drop.

  Perhaps some kind angel watched out for Job because he weathered the gaol, the hulks and nearly six months crammed below decks,

  When Richard Guise came searching for a farm hand and stood in the barracks at Sydney looking at the human debris sent over from the old country he didn’t expect much success and was particularly despondent. Ambitious, strong and forever increasing his acreages, he’d become completely despairing of the labour on offer. Free settlers weren’t prepared to give their time to such as him and the assigned labour often proved little better than a horde of cutthroats and thieves. And if they weren’t criminal in themselves they certainly weren’t versed in the ways of farming life. Petty criminals, miscreants from the city, soldiers and sailors thrown out on the streets. Men who had no idea that cows must be milked on time, sheds cleaned out, hay cut and stooked and all animals fed and watched.

  “Mon dieu,” he’d complained to Elizabeth, “half of them don’t know one end of a cow from the other. You could tell, they’d be more trouble than they were worth.”

  “So your journey was fruitless?”

  “Well, I suppose I just have to settle for what I can get. Finally took this young fellow, I’d trust too young to have learnt any real vice but that’s a vain hope, I daresay.”

  “You have to have someone.”

  “Well I took a chance. This one was up for poaching, as I said, they’re all thieves. He looks young enough to learn some sense. But he’ll be like the rest, I wager, give satisfaction for a few weeks then lining his pockets whenever he can.”

  And there, for once, Richard Guise was completely wrong. And Job never ceased to bless the day that his master took that chance. All the skills of farm life were at his fingertips: milking, shepherding, digging, planting, and everything vital to a property. He began his seven years labour on Richard Guise’s property out at Parramatta and his master soon learnt that Job could be trusted to milk the cows, shut up the fowls at night, watch out for straying sheep, and went about it willingly too. He needed no second bidding, animals had always been part of his life, their routines were as important to him as those of humankind.

  And Job in his turn learnt even more. In this contrary new world the trees dropped their bark but not their leaves, huge birds screeched their way amongst the branches and streams dried up and disappeared, nothing like the Tarrant which flowed without ceasing between its grassy banks where old white shells of snails brought over by the Romans could still be found deep amongst the clumps of comfrey.

  Quickly he learnt the ways of this new world and when his seven years of servitude were up and the time came for freedom Job could think of no other life than sharing the fortunes of the Guise family. He’d seen the births of so many children, the steady advancement of the family’s fortunes, he’d laboured through flood and fire and he trusted his master as much as Richard, in his turn, relied upon him. He considered himself fortunate and intended to stay with the Guise’s for the rest of his mortal span.

  When the old coach rumbled out through the gates of Bywong and started on its long journey to the city, Job held the reins as usual.

  Bags and boxes, rugs and canvas were piled up to such an extent that Mary Ann had to be squeezed into a corner so her grandfather could stretch his throbbing leg out to its full extent.

  A tediously long journey lay ahead, the roads barely more than beaten tracks. Added to that, who was watching, who was lying in wait to rob and possibly even worse? But when there was no choice in the matter, what could be done? Never once did Job take his eyes off the road. Hawk-like, he noted every hillock and rock, every corner and every clump of trees, and once out on the open road he cracked the whip and they set off at a spanking pace.

  Briefly they called at a wayside inn. The old man insisted on getting out for his own comfort and to see if the accommodation was acceptable but he limped back to the coach shaking his head.

  “One of those blood houses. We’ll not spend a night under that woman’s roof, my oath we’ll not.”

  “What’s a blood house, Grand-père?” Mary Ann asked as she propped a cushion under his painful leg.

  “Place where you’d wake up covered in blood. I can tell, I know, I can smell ‘em. Remind me to tell you a story about that sometime… saved a man’s life that night… never forget it. Get eaten alive by bugs you can be, eaten alive. Soon as I put my nose inside that door I smelt ‘em. Anyhow, we’re not sleeping anywhere like that. We’re better under the stars.”

  “But what if it’s raining?” She regarded him with a questioning look.

  “But what if you stopped quizzing me?” he snapped. His leg hurt and he dreaded five days of jolting and jarring. He secretly wondered if he’d have been better accepting that he might be lame for the rest of his life and not started on this painful journey. “Confounded horse, confounded rock… everything’s a confounded mess,” he groused as he shifted and tried to make himself comfortable.

  Mary Ann said no more but contented herself with looking at the passing scenery. Everything was so new, so different from Bywong. In all her life she’d never once been beyond Goulburn, now every inch of the way enticed her as they creaked and lurched on towards that far off enchanted place called Sydney.

  Even if she had never been there she knew all about it. Sydney had cobbled streets and fashionable carriages spinning along the highways and byways. Afternoon teas and evening conversaziones, balls and race meetings filled the days of all who lived in that far-off city. Though whether her sister might consider her old enough to attend any of those wonderful events remained another matter. Poor Grand-père’s predicament had been a blessing for her. Not many girls of her age would be taking the road to Sydney.

  Camping out under the stars proved to be yet another enchantment, in spite of Job’s grumbles as he hobbled the horses and set up the tent, dragged the tarpaulin out and made the fire. “There you are Missy, I’ll see to yer grandpa. Now the fire’s sparked up real nice, them chops’ll be real good if you don’t let ‘em burn.”

  The novelty of cooking over the campfire, boiling the billy and mixing up damper preluded a night when the world changed from a hot, dusty succession of forest and plain to a mysterious place filled with the cries of the owl, the rustle of possums above them and the distant howl of the hunting dingo. Not for one moment was Mary Ann apprehensive as she lay looking up at the myriad stars gleaming through the branches of the gum trees; instead her whole being rejoiced that she’d been allowed to make such a journey. Travellers often spoke of the magic of sleeping under the stars. Well it was more than magic. It was a revelation.

  But banks of storm clouds ushered in the next day, and as she helped Job pack up the camp and listened to his grumbles the first hint of concern about the journey niggled at her.

  “Change in the weather.” Job took up the reins and urged the ho
rses back onto the road. Little more than a potholed track, in some places so narrow the trees brushed the windows, in others widening out enough for two carts or coaches to pass. On the next occasion when they stopped, his pessimism had increased as he complained about his rheumaticky joints.

  “Rain’s not far off, me screws tell me that. Mark my words we’ll have rain before long.”

  All day they travelled under an overcast sky, the first drops of rain falling before light began to fade from above. Soon it slid like teardrops down the windows. Mary Ann stared out at the darkening landscape and the teeming downpour.

  “What’s he stopped for now?” Grand-père demanded.

  “P’haps we’ve shed a shoe?”

  “What we gonna do, sir?” Job’s face appeared at the door. “Can’t see no sense in setting up our camp tonight.”

  “We’ve the tent and the tarpaulin.”

  “And what we do for kindling, eh? Bin raining hereabouts all day, I’d say. Ground’s soaked and that last creek we passed is rising fast.”

  “Haven’t you ever camped in the rain before, man?” Grand-père snapped.

  “Not with a young lady in the party and a gent as ain’t in the best of health…not ever.” Job replied with the familiarity of a long-time retainer. “We’ll be soaked to the skin afore we get’s anything up. There’ll be no meal tonight, only what’s left of last night’s damper. It may be alright for some,” and he sniffed loudly, “some as may be sittin’ up inside like, but for others…well it’ll be the worst. Gotta take a look at what’s troublin’ the mare. She’s made heavy weather of that last mile or more…”

  Grand-père stared obstinately out of the window. All his life he had travelled this road up to the city. Whenever business demanded his presence or family matters needed attention he’d saddle up and take off. How easy everything had been when strength and health were on his side. Reluctantly he admitted to himself that now there were other considerations.