Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XXII Part 15

The narrative grieved and distressed him beyond measure; for, until I told him, he had no idea I stood before him a convicted felon; his first impression naturally being that I had come to the colony of my own free will.

Unlike all others, however, he, my poor father, believed implicitly my a.s.sertions of entire innocence of the crime for which I had been transported. But he felt bitterly for the degrading situation in which I stood, and from which neither my own conscious innocence nor his convictions, he was but too sensible, could rescue me in so far as regarded the opinion of the world.

Having told my father my story, he told me his. It was simply this--the story of hundreds, thousands. Tempted by the favourable accounts he had heard and read of Australia, he had come to the resolution of emigrating; had, with this view, sold off at home; and here he was. He added that he had obtained a grant of land, of about 500 acres, in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, on very favourable terms; that although he had not found everything quite so suitable or so well-ordered as he had expected, he had no doubt of being able to do very well when once he should have got matters put in proper train. He said he had already got a very good house erected on the farm, and that although their situation for the first two or three months was bad enough, they were now pretty comfortable; and he hoped that, with my a.s.sistance--seeing, as he interpolated with a faint smile, I had just cast up in the nick of time--they would soon make things still better.

"Your poor mother, Davie," continued my father, recurring to a subject which we had already discussed--for my first inquiries had been after that dear parent, who, I was delighted to learn, was in perfect good health, although sunk in spirits in consequence of long mental suffering on my account,--"Your poor mother, Davie," he said, "will go distracted with joy at the sight of you. Her thoughts by day, her dreams by night, have been of you, Davie. But," he added, seeing the tears streaming down my cheeks, "I will not distress you by dwelling on the misery you have occasioned her. It's all over now, I trust, and you will compensate for the past. Neither will I say a word as to the folly of your conduct in flying your father's house as you did. You have paid dearly for that false step; and G.o.d forbid, my son, that I, your father, should add to the punishment. You are, I perceive, too sensible of the folly to render it necessary. So, of that no more."

Of that folly I was indeed sensible--bitterly sensible; and could not listen to the calm, rational, and kind language of my father, without looking back with amazement at the stupidity of my conduct. It now seemed to me to have been the result of utter insanity--madness. I could neither recall nor comprehend the motives and impulses under which I had acted; and could only see the act itself standing forth in naked, inexplicable absurdity. Recurring again to the circ.u.mstances which had led to my present unhappy position, and which were always floating uppermost in my father's mind--

"That scoundrel, Digby," he said, "must have been at the bottom of the mischief, Davie. It must have been he who put the spoon into your pocket. What a fiendish contrivance!"

"I have always thought so, father," I replied; "and on my trial ventured to hint it, as I also did to the turnkeys and jailers; but although none said so directly, I saw very clearly that all considered it as a ridiculous invention--a clumsy way of accounting for a very plain fact."

My father now proposed that I should start with him on the following morning, per coach, for Liverpool, from which his farm was distant an easy walk of some six or seven miles. On the following morning, accordingly, after having duly acknowledged our worthy host's kindness, we took our seats on the outside of the coach, and were soon whirling it away merrily toward our destination.

During our journey, it gave both my father and I much painful thought how we should break the matter of my unhappy position to my mother. It would be death to her to learn it. At first we thought of concealing the circ.u.mstances altogether; but the chances of her hearing it from others, or making the discovery herself when she was unprepared for it, through a hundred different means, finally determined us on communicating the unpleasant intelligence ourselves; that is, my father undertook the disagreeable task, meaning, however, to choose time and circ.u.mstance, and to allow a day or two to elapse before he alluded to it.

Having arrived at Liverpool, we started on foot for my father's farm.

Should I attempt it, I would not find it easy to describe what were my feelings at this moment, arising from the prospect of so soon beholding that dear parent, whose image had ever been present to my mind, whose kind tones were ever sounding in my ears like some heart-stirring and well-remembered melody. They were overpowering. But when my father, after we had walked for about an hour, raised his stick, and, pointing to a neat farm-steading on the slope of a hill, and on the skirt of a dense mountain forest that rose high behind it, said, "There's the house, Davie," I thought I should have sunk on the ground. I had never felt so agitated, excepting in that unhappy hour when I stood at the bar of the Old Bailey, and heard sentence of transportation awarded against me. But I compare the feelings on these two occasions only as regards their intensity: in nature they were very different indeed. On the former, they were those of excruciating agony; on the latter, those of excessive joy. As we approached the house, I descried one at the door.

It was a female figure. It was my mother. I gasped for breath. I flew over the ground. I felt it not beneath my feet. I would not be restrained by my father, who kept calling to me. My mother fixed her gaze on me, wondering at my excited manner--wondering who I could be; all unconscious, as I could perceive by her vacant though earnest look, that I was her son--- the darling of her heart. But a mother's eye is quick. Another moment, and a shriek of wild joy and surprise announced that I was recognised; in the next, we were in each other's arms, wrapt in a speechless agony of bliss!

My father, whom I had left a long way behind, came up to us while we were locked together in this silent embrace, and stood by us for a few seconds without speaking a word, then pa.s.sed quietly into the house, leaving us to ourselves.

"My son, my son!" exclaimed my mother, so soon as the fulness of her feelings would allow of utterance, "you have been cruel, cruel to your mother. But I will not upbraid you. In seeing you again--in clasping you once more to my bosom--I am repaid a thousandfold for all you have made me suffer."

With what further pa.s.sed between us, I need not detain the reader.

The tender expressions of a mother and son meeting under such circ.u.mstances as we met, being the language of nature, the embodiment of feelings which all ran conceive, there is no occasion for dilating on them in my particular case. I pa.s.s on to other things of more general, or at least more uncommon interest.

The first day of my arrival at my father's farm was pa.s.sed entirely within doors in social communion, and in bringing up that arrear of interchange in thought and feeling which our separation for so long a period had created.

On the following day I commenced work with my father; and although I had done my duty faithfully by both the masters I had served since I came to New South Wales, I soon found the difference between compulsory and voluntary labour.

In the former case I certainly wrought diligently, but as certainly not cheerfully. There was an absence of spirit that quickly gave rise to listlessness and fatigue, and that left the physical energies weak and languid, in the latter case, it was far otherwise. Toil as I might, I felt no diminution of strength. I went from task to task, some of them far harder than any I had yet encountered, with unabated vigour, and accomplished with ease double the work I ever could get through with when in bondage.

The joint labours of my father and myself, a.s.sisted occasionally by hired service--for he could not endure the idea of having convicts about him--soon put a new and promising face on the farm.

We cleared, we drained, we enclosed, and we sowed and planted, until we left ourselves comparatively little to do--I mean in the way of hard labour--but to await the returns of our industry.

It was some time after we had got things into this state--that is, I think about three months after I had joined my father--that the latter received intelligence of a band of bushmen or bushrangers having been seen in the neighbourhood. He was a.s.sured that they were skulking in the adjoining forest, and that we might every night expect our house to be attacked, robbed, and ourselves, in all probability, murdered.

This information threw us into a most dreadful state of alarm; these bushrangers, as the reader probably knows, being runaway convicts, men of the most desperate characters, who take to the woods, and subsist by plundering the settlers--a crime to which they do not hesitate to add murder--many instances of fearful atrocities of this kind having occurred.

For some time we were quite at a loss what to do; for although we had firearms and ammunition in the house, there were only four men of us--my father, myself, and two servant lads--while the bushrangers, as we had been told, were at least ten or twelve in number. To have thought then of repelling them by force, was out of the question; it could only have ended in the murder of us all.

Under these circ.u.mstances, my father determined on applying to the authorities for constabulary or military protection; and with this view went to Liverpool, where the district magistrate resided.

On stating the case to the latter, he at once gave my father a note to the commanding officer of the garrison, enjoining him to send a small party of military along with him,--these to remain with us for our protection as long as circ.u.mstances should render it necessary, and, in the meanwhile, to employ themselves in scouring the adjoining woods, with a view to the apprehension of the bushrangers, and to fire on them without hesitation in all cases where they could not be captured.

The result was, that a party of twelve men, commanded by a sergeant, were immediately turned out, and marched off with my father.

I was sitting on an eminence close by the house, and which commanded a view of the road leading to and from Liverpool, looking out for my father's return, when the party came in sight.

As they neared, I recognised the men, from certain particulars in their uniform, a party of the--th, the regiment into which I had enlisted.

The circ.u.mstance excited some curious feelings, and awakened a train of not very pleasing reflections.

I had never dreamt of meeting any of the corps in so distant a part of the world; yet there was nothing more likely or more natural, a large military force being always kept in New South Wales, and frequently changed.

I felt, however, no uneasiness on the subject, thinking that it was not at all probable, seeing the very short time I had been in the regiment, and the constant accession of new men it was receiving, I should be recognised by any of the party.

In the meantime, the party were rapidly approaching me, and were now so near, that I could perceive the sergeant to be a tall and handsome young man of about two or three and twenty. Little did I yet dream who this sergeant was. I descended to meet them. We came up to each other. The sergeant started on seeing me, and looked at me with a grave surprise and fixed gaze. I did precisely the same by him. We advanced towards each other with smiling faces and extended arms. "Lorimer!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Lindsay!" I replied. It was indeed Lindsay, my old comrade, promoted to a sergeantcy.

Our mutual astonishment and satisfaction at this extraordinary and unexpected meeting was, I need not say, very great, although I certainly thought I perceived a certain dryness and want of cordiality in Lindsay's manner towards me. But for this I made every allowance, believing it to proceed from a doubt of my innocence, if not a conviction of my guilt, in the matter for which I had been transported.

He in short, it seemed to me, could not forget that, in speaking to me, although an old comrade, he was speaking to a convicted felon. However, notwithstanding this feeling on his part, we talked freely of old stories; and as we were apart from the men, I did not hesitate, amongst other things, to allude to my misfortune, nor to charge the blame of it on Digby.

"Well," said the sergeant, in reply to my remarks on this subject, "since you have mentioned the matter yourself, Lorimer, I am glad to hear you say so--that is, to hear you say that you are innocent of that rascally business; for, putting your a.s.sertions, so solemnly made, to what my wife says--for she has some queer stories of that fellow Digby--I have no doubt now of your innocence."

"Your wife!" exclaimed I in some amazement. "In the first place, then, you are married; in the next, how on earth, if I may ask, should she know anything of Digby?"

"Why, man, Susan Blaikie is my wife," replied the sergeant, laughing; "and she's not, I take it, half a dozen miles from us at this moment. I left her safe and sound in my quarters in Liverpool not two hours ago; and right glad will she be to see you, when you can make it convenient to give us a call. But of that we will speak more hereafter."

Like two or three other things recorded in this little history, this information gave me much surprise, but, like few of them, much gratification also; as I had feared the worst for poor Susan, seeing that she had been discharged from her situation, as I had no doubt without a character, probably under a suspicion of being concerned with me in the alleged robbery.

By the time I had expressed the surprise and satisfaction which Sergeant Lindsay's communication had given me, we had reached the house, when all conversation between us of a private nature ceased for the time.

The first business now was to set some refreshment before the men. This was quickly done; the sergeant, my father, and I taking care of ourselves in a similar way in another apartment. The next was to take the immediate matter in hand into consideration. Accordingly, we three formed ourselves into a council of war, and, after some deliberation, came to the following resolutions:--That we should, soldiers and all, keep closely within doors during the remainder of the afternoon; and that as it was more than probable the bushmen would make their attack that very night, and as it was likely they would know nothing of the military being in the house, seeing that they always kept at a distance during the day, or lay concealed in hidden places, we should take them by surprise; that, for this purpose, we should remain up all night, and place ourselves, with loaded arms, by the windows, and in such other situations as would enable us to see them approaching, without being seen by them.

Having determined on this plan of operations, we resumed our conversation on indifferent matters, and thus spent the time till it was pretty far on in the night, when Lindsay suggested that it was full time the men were distributed in the positions we intended them to occupy.

Two were accordingly placed at each window of both the back and front of the house, the sergeant and I occupying one,--he with one of our muskets, and I with a rifle. It was a bright moonlight night; so that, as the vicinity of the house was completely cleared around, to the distance of at least 200 yards on every side, no one could approach it without being seen; although they could remain long enough invisible, and in safety, in the dense wood beyond, and by which the house was surrounded on all sides but one.

The sergeant and I had thus sat for, I think, about an hour and a half, looking intently towards the dark forest beyond the cleared ground, when we thought we saw several small, dark objects flitting about the skirts of the wood; but whether they were kangaroos or men, we could not tell.

Keeping our eyes fixed steadily on them, however, we by-and-by saw them unite, and could distinctly make out that they were approaching the house in a body. Soon they came sufficiently near to enable us to discern that it was a party of men, to the number of about eight or ten.

There might be more, but certainly no fewer. We could now also see that they were armed--at least a part of them--with muskets.

Satisfied that they were the much dreaded bushrangers, of whose vicinity we had been apprised, the sergeant hastily left the window at which he and I had been seated, and, stealing with soft and cautious steps through the house, visited each of his posts to see that the men were on the alert. To each he whispered instructions to put their pieces on c.o.c.k, to go down on their knees at the window, and to rest the muzzles of their muskets on the sill, but not project them out more than two or three inches. He concluded by telling them not to fire a shot until they heard the report of his musket; that then they were to pepper away as hard as they could pelt, taking, however, a sure and steady aim at every shot.

In the meantime the bushmen, whose advance had been, and still was, very slow and cautious, as if they dreaded an ambuscade, had approached to within seventy yards of the house. Thinking them yet too distant to make sure of them, we allowed them to come nearer. They did so; but they had now a.s.sumed a stealthy step, walking lightly, as if they feared that their footfalls should be heard. They were led on by one of their number; at least there was one man considerably in advance of his fellows. He was armed with a sword, as we saw it flas.h.i.+ng in the moonlight.

The party, handling their guns in readiness to fire, on the slightest alarm, at any living object that might present itself, were now within thirty or forty yards of the house, and had halted to reconnoitre; when the sergeant, who had been on his knees for several minutes before, with his piece at his eye, said softly, "Now," and fired. Whether he had aimed at the foremost man of the gang, I do not know; but if so, he had missed him, for he still stood firm. At this person, however, I now levelled, fired, and down he came. In the next instant the shots were rapping thick and fast from the different windows of the house.

The bushrangers, taken by surprise, paused for an instant, returned two or three straggling shots, and then fled in the utmost consternation and disorder. We kept pelting after them for a few minutes, and then, quitting the house, gave them chase, with a whooping and hallooing that must have added in no small degree to their terror. In this chase we overtook two that had been severely wounded, and came upon a third near the skirt of the wood, who, after running so far, had dropped down dead.

The others, who had fled, some of whom, we had no doubt, were also wounded, escaped by getting into the forest, where it was no use looking for them. The two wounded men we made prisoners, and carried back to the house. As we were returning, we came upon the man whom I had brought down. Being extended motionless on the ground at full length, we thought him dead, and were about to pa.s.s on, intending to leave him where he lay till the morning, when I thought I heard him breathing. I knelt down beside him, looked narrowly into his face, and found that he was still living. On discovering this, we had the unfortunate man carried to the house; and having placed him on a mattress, staunched the bleeding of his wound, which was on the right breast, and administered a little brandy and water, which almost immediately revived him. He opened his eyes, began to breathe more freely, and in a short time was so far recovered as to be able to speak, although with difficulty.

The excitement of the fray over, if the late affair could be so called, my heart bled within me for the unhappy wretch who had been reduced by my hand to the deplorable condition in which he now lay before me. My conscience rose up against me, and would not be laid by any suggestions of the necessity that prompted the deed. In my anxiety to make what reparation I could for what now seemed to me my cruelty, I sat by the miserable sufferer, ready and eager to supply any want he might express, and to administer what comfort I could do him in his dying moments; for that he was dying, notwithstanding the temporary revival alluded to, was but too evident from his ghastly look and rapidly glazing eye.

It was while I thus sat by the unhappy man, and while silently contemplating his pallid countenance, by the faint light of a lamp that hung against the wall of the apartment, that I suddenly thought I perceived in that countenance some traces of features that I had seen before. Whose they were, or where I had seen them, I did not at first recollect. But the idea having once presented itself, I kept hunting it through all the recesses of my memory. At length Digby occurred to me.

But no, Digby it could not be. Impossible.