Somebody having made inquiry about the voyage, Green went on,
“O, that’s the worst part of it. It’s horrid enough, to be sure, to be cooped up for months on board, and all so solemn and dull, and no getting out of the way of the clergyman. But it’s not so bad as it used to be, when they treated such folks as we like so many wild beasts. They paid the captain so much a head for the people embarked, and never asked how many he landed; so he starved as many as he pleased, and stowed them so close that scores were stifled by the way. It was mighty dull work then for those that got safe; the labour was so hard, and no liberty. There was little encouragement to go to the colonies then. But now that they don’t kill one by inches by the way, it is worth putting up with the passage, for the chance of making one’s fortune at the end of it.”
“Particularly for them that have friends in power to get fine situations for them,” said Jerry pertly. “Bob and I are going to have good care taken of us, I hear. But it’s a great plague that the old ones are going to be spies over us. It will spoil our sport terribly, unless we can manage to cut them.”
“That’s better than having them whining and praying after us all the way from here to the ship, as the old folks mostly do,” said Green. “When I went before, my father behaved as if he was following me to the gallows. He knows better now. He gave me the wink yesterday for a sharp chap that knew how to take care of myself. He said,—true enough,—that the worst blunder I ever made was coming back when once I was well off.”
“Aye, aye, Green; a certain person knew how to take care of herself as well as you. She knew better than to keep herself single five years for you. ’Tis a fine feather in her cap to have brought you so far on a fool’s errand.”errand.”
Green tried to conceal his visible passion under an appearance of indifference, while he muttered that a better one than he came for would follow him out very soon, if the judge did not baulk them of the sentence they meant to get pronounced upon her.
“Here they come, lads!” he cried, interrupting himself. “All is ready: our carriage at the door! Put a bold face upon it, boys! Now for it! Don’t have anything to say to the whiners at the gate. Curse all spoil-sports! Give them three cheers, boys! Hurra! hurra! hurra!”
And gibing, jeering, laughing, shouting, went the batch of convicts through a throng of relatives and former companions, and gazing strangers; some of whom were pale and weeping, others signing and winking, and more gaping in wonder and pleasure at the scene; speculating upon whether the largest share of punishment did not rest with those who were left behind. Bob, and one or two other scowlers, were almost overlooked in the company of adventurers, who seemed to be going forth merrily to cheat the law, and seek their fortunes in a land of plenty.
Ellen was the first of the family that arrived at Hobart Town in Van Diemen’s Land. Next came the convict-ship, which was sent round to Launceston to disembark its passengers; that port being nearer the district where the convict labour was to be employed. When the batch of parish emigrants arrived, a fortnight afterwards, Frank found, on application to the proper government officer, that his sister had landed in good health, and had received a high character from the clergyman and his lady who had come over as superintendents of the expedition; that Ellen had been forwarded, with a few of her fellow-passengers, to the district where a service had been procured for her as dairy-maid on a settler’s farm; and that care had been taken that her parents and brother should be indentured to farmers in the same neighbourhood. So far, all was well. Frank could learn nothing about his brothers, except that they were to be landed at Launceston, and that Launceston was within thirty miles of the spot where he was to be located. The officer he was speaking to had nothing to do with the arrangements respecting convicts: his business was to take care of emigrant labourers on their arrival.
Castle himself could not help being pleased atat the appearance of things at Hobart Town, when he and Frank took a walk, the evening after their arrival. The only objections he could think of were, that there were few shops; that it was not at all likely that the country inland should be half so civilized as what he saw; and that it was a thing he had not been used to, to have Christmas fall at the hottest time of the year, and the trees green all the winter through. It was now May; and they told him that winter was coming on, and yet that the woods would look as green as now all the time; and that the snow, if there was any, would not lie more than a day on any ground but the mountain tops, and a bleak common here and there. They told him that for more than three hundred days in the year the sun would shine all day, and the air be dry and pure, and seldom too hot or too cold. All this was what he had not been used to, and did not know how to believe. His son supposed that if it came true, he would not object; as one of the consequences of such a climate is that English people have much better health, and live, on the average, a good deal longer at Van Diemen’s Land than at home. Castle peevishly laughed at all talk about life and health, when it was, in his opinion, doubtful whether they might not be starved to death within three months. His son left this point to be demonstrated by time rather than by argument; and meanwhile observed that there were few signs of starvation about Hobart Town, in which, besides the government residence, there are nearly eight hundred houses, most of which are surrounded with gardens; the dwellings having been originally built on separate allotments of land, of a quarter of an acre each. The streets cross at right-angles, and command fine views of the neighbouring country, and afford cheering evidences of the success of the industry which has sought employment there. A dock-yard is seen on the river’s brink; and corn-mills, tanneries, breweries, a hat-manufactory, &c., are conspicuous in the midst of the town. An amphitheatre of green hills rises to the westward, the crowning summit of which is 4000 feet high; and from these hills descends a fine stream of water, flowing through the town into the Derwent, which, with its varying expanse and beautifully wooded bays and sloping shores, forms the eastern boundary. This view was little enough like what Castle had fancied in opposition to all that he had been told. He was for ever picturing to himself a region of wild woods, or bleak plains covered with snow; and he was now as much surprised at the sight of meadows, hills, dales, and a thriving town, with a blue sky overhead, as if he might not have known as much before. He had complained of his hard lot in being indentured as a shepherd; and no wonder, while he thought his flocks were to inhabit a dreary wilderness; but now that he found he had nothing to fear from storms and snow-drifts, that the pastures were excellent, the springs plentiful, and the sheep as fine as the world can produce, he began to think he might be worse off in point of occupation; though he would give nobody the satisfaction of hearing him say so. His wife was to be a domestic servant in the same farm where he was shepherd; and even little Susan was carefully stipulated for; the labour of children being valuable at almost any age, in a place where much more assistance is wanted than can be had.
The first part of their journey to the Dairy Plains, (the district where they were to settle,) was through the very choicest portion of the island, both as to beauty and fertility. It is not surprising that those who first surveyed this tract, and took it as a fair sample of the island at large, should have represented Van Diemen’s Land as a terrestrial paradise, and been suspected of exaggeration through the favourableness of their report. The fact is, the island is supposed to contain about 15,000,000 acres,—one-third of which is considered arable, another third fit for sheep-pasture, and the rest unprofitable at present. The country between Hobart Town and Launceston consists of green hills and fertile plains, among which towns and villages and solitary dwellings are interspersed. Rivers wind between their wooded banks, and streams flow down from the high grounds. Excellent macadamized roads run through the whole district, and branch off to the growing settlements on either hand of the main track. It was a great amusement to Frank to compare whatever he met with that partook of the civilization of his own country with whatever looked new and strange. Before leaving Hobart Town, he had been all the more struck with its printing establishments, its Mechanics’ Institute, its Book Society, and schools, from observing the strangeness of the natural productions that he met at every step. In the gardens he beheld tea trees where he had been accustomed to see lilacs and laburnums; and cotton plants, myrtles, and geraniums growing as tall as himself, and spreading out into bushes. The very grass grows differently;—not stringy in the roots and carpetlike in the surface, as in England; but in tufts. Parrots, instead of canaries, were the pets of young ladies; and the bandicoot was offered for sale instead of the rabbit. Cockatoos instead of crows were to be frightened away from the fields and gardens; and flocks of pigeons among the stubble looked as much like partridges as pigeons; only more beautiful,—with their gold-dropped wings,—than either species in England. On the road, in like manner, the freestone bridge over the Jordan, the postman on horseback, the tillage and inclosures, looked British; but the evergreen woods, in the midst of which arose the peppermint tree to a lofty height;—the herds of kangaroos coming out of their covert into the dewy plains at sunrise;—the spotted opossums climbing and descending the forest trees;—the black swans sailing on the lakes, and uttering cries like the creaking of an old sign-board;—all appeared foreign, and scarcely belonging to the people who had settled among them.them.
A sight of a yet different character met the eyes of the travellers near the close of the second day, when they were drawing near their future abode in the province called Norfolk Plains, in the centre of which lay the Dairy Plains, where Ellen was expecting them. They had for some time quitted the broad road, and were following a track along which their waggon proceeded with tolerable convenience. At last they came to a point beyond which it had not been carried, and where a gang of labourers was at work roadmaking;—not as in England, each man intent upon his own heap of stones, free in limb and thoughtful in countenance;—not as in Ireland, where some are lounging and all are joking;—but charged with the fetters of felons, and superintended by an armed taskmaster. As Frank looked upon these wretches, with their hardened or woful countenances, he felt indeed that he was not in England, but in one of her penal settlements,—breathing the air of one of the places where her vice and misery are deposited. His very soul became sick when, as the labourers turned to stare at the somewhat uncommon sight of a waggon full of travellers, he met the eyes of his convict brothers. He hoped that his companions would not perceive them; but he soon found that his father did, by his testy complaints of the jolting of the cart, of cold and heat, and what not. The unhappy mother looked on her outcast children with as much curiosity as compassion. Bob turned away, and stooped to his work, never looking up till they were out of sight; but Jerry waved his cap and shouted, and dared Frank to a wager which of them would first be free to work for themselves: whether it would take longest to work out his sentence, or to pay for Frank’s passage and settlement. This supplied a new theme of complaint to Castle, who wrought himself up into a passion about his being a slave, with all his family. Frank, who hated bondage as much as any man, thought it could hardly be called slavery to contract to work for one person for a certain time, in return for advantages which could not otherwise be obtained. If disappointed of these advantages,—of sufficient food, clothing, shelter, and money wages,—the contract was void, and no harm done; if not disappointed, the object was gained. The evil lay, not in their case as labourers; but as honest men. Felons ought not to be let off so easily, (because their labour happened to be more valuable than at home,) as to make disgrace, for which many of them did not care, their only punishment; their worldly circumstances being actually bettered by their removal to a new colony. It was not that labourers need be better off than their family would probably be, four or five years hence; but that felons ought not to be placed in as good circumstances as the honest emigrant at the end of the same period.
Frank was not yet aware (as he afterwards became) that, for want of knowing the rate of wages at the colonies, emigrants often bind themselves for a much lower rate than they might obtain if they went free, or if they were properly informed of the existing state of things; and thus think themselves deceived, and are tempted to break their contract when they find how matters stand. This evil is to be referred to the ignorance of emigrant labourers, quite as much as to the close economy of the settlers, and should induce all who have heard of it to obtain such information before concluding their bargain as will save them from repentance afterwards, and guard them against quarrels on this score with their new masters;—quarrels, which, always a great evil, are most so in newly settled countries, where all hands and hearts are wanted to work together for the common good. As it is, a British artisan jumps at the offer of a plentiful subsistence and 2s. a-day besides for five years, out of which the expenses of his removal are to be paid; and for this rate he binds himself. When he gets to his destination, he finds that this plentiful subsistence, including meat, bread, beer or spirits, tea, sugar, comfortable clothing, and a convenient dwelling, costs no more than 2s. a-day, and that, if free, he might earn, being a good workman, from 7s. to 12s. a-day, or even 15s., if he be a superior mechanic of a scarce class. It is mortifying to find that he has sold himself, however much higher than formerly, for less than he is worth in his new position; and hencehence arise discontents which embitter the first yearsyears of his new life, if they do not occasion a breach of contract. The friends of a rational plan of emigration should do their utmost to make known to as many as it may concern, to what extent labour is wanted in the colonies,—what is the rate of money wages in each, and what those money wages will procure. The official information on these points transmitted from Van Diemen’s Land in 1827, was, that common labourers earn 3s. per day; common mechanics 7s.; better mechanics, from 8s. to 12s.; best ditto, from 12s. to 15s.; and persons of peculiar qualifications, fitted to superintend farms or other undertakings, 1l. a-day. Since that time, wages are understood to have risen. The price of wheat is 7s. a bushel; meat, 2d. or 3d. per lb.; sugar, from 3d. to 6d.; and tea, from 1s. 6d. to 4s. per lb.—No wonder that, amidst all their gratitude at being well provided for, many such workmen as Frank are vexed and mortified to find how much more they might have made of their labour.
Far other feelings, however, than those of discontent were awakened in Frank by the aspect of his new abode. It was almost in a state of nature, his employer, Mr. Stapleton, having preceded him to take possession only a few days before: but it was far from being a desolate spot in the midst of a waste, as settlers’ farms are wont to be in colonies where the unwise object is to disperse the inhabitants, instead of bringing them near to enjoy the advantages of a division of labour and reciprocity of consumption. The Dutch government at the Cape of Good Hope formerly forbade settlers to approach within three miles of each other; and thus effectually prevented the full improvement of the land, the construction of roads, and the opening of a market for exchanges. Hence the Dutch settlers at the Cape are to this day deprived of many advantages of civilized life. They have too much of whatever they grow, and too little of what they would fain buy; and are debarred the comforts of society and mutual help. These evils are likely to be avoided by the method of disposing of land now adopted by our government in Australia; the land being sold on terms which make it the interest of the settler to improve his tract, and to take advantage of a neighbourhood which may relieve him of some of his produce. Mr. Stapleton, having been obliged to choose his land carefully, and to pay 9s. an acre for it, (instead of 6d., or nothing at all, like some of the earlier inhabitants,) was not tempted to wander away into the wilderness, and sit down where he might happen to like the prospect, or to be smitten with some new discovery of fish-ponds, woods, and meadows. He made his choice instead among the lands of a certain district; and selected such, as to extent and quality, as would on the whole best suit his purposes, in conjunction with the privileges of a neighbourhood. His land, though not of the very first quality, was good enough to have fetched 15s. per acre, if it had lain somewhat more to the north or east, where the country was rapidly becoming better peopled; but it stretched towards the unoccupied districts at the foot of the western mountains, and was less valuable than if it had been surrounded by civilization, instead of only borderingbordering upon it.—It consisted,—not of jungle and forest ground, where room must be made by the axe before seed could be sown and sunshine visit it; but of a lightly timbered and undulating surface of grass land, wanting only a single burning to render it fit for the plough, or for a new growth of pasture. The trees were not of the nature of copse and thicket; but growing in clumps a hundred feet apart, and with clear stems, measuring ninety feet or more to the lowest branch; thus affording spots for shade and shelter without interfering with tillage. The boundaries, where not formed by natural streams, were fixed by marking the trees; and there was no immediate need of fences where neither man nor beast was likely to trespass, and where there was at present no live stock that could be in danger of straying. No one was near who could be tempted to steal; for none were poor. The wild cattle, which in former days did great mischief on the grounds of the settler, had long ago been driven among the mountains, where it was supposed the race had died out, as none now appeared. The few oxen and horses that Stapleton brought with him were kept near the dwelling; and the rest of the stock was not to follow till all was in readiness for its reception. A rude shed had been hastily constructed for shelter, under a clump of trees; and a few sawn planks were lying about: by which Frank saw that the materials of his business were ready for him to begin upon without delay. Tools and utensils were stowed away in corners, or heaped under the trees, till their proper places were provided for them; and a goodly row of casks and packages of provision stood in the background. Frank had believed that his spirit of enterprise had died within him under the hardships of his own country; but he now felt it revive in a moment; and was anything but dismayed at the prospect of what he had to do in his capacity of carpenter, before the scene before him could put on the appearance of a snug and well-managed farmstead. He saw in fancy the day when a little hamlet of weather-boarded cottages would be sending up their blue smoke among those trees; when cattle-sheds and sheep-pens would stretch out behind the dwellings, and the busy forge and creaking timber-wain would drown the cry of the quail, and scare away the kangaroos that were now leaping over the plains. He did not forget to add a very superior workshop and timber-yard to his picture of his own dwelling; or to imagine his father looking down from among his flock on the hills, or Ellen within sight, going forth in the bright early morning with her milk-pail.
As if to answer to his thought, Ellen now appeared. She had stolen half an hour to run in search of Mr. Stapleton, to ask once more how soon he thought Frank might possibly arrive. Mr. Stapleton was almost as eager for the event as herself; but he knew no more, and was just dismissing her, disappointed, when the waggon was heard approaching. While she waited a moment, straining her sight to make out whether it was the right party, before she ran to meet them, her brother jumped out, and even Castle started up with more alacrity than he had shown since they landed. Before they could well greet one another, Stapleton came up to ask where Frank’s tools were, and to tell him that he was wanted very much indeed. He could not refuse him permission to go forward one mile, in order to deposit Castle and his wife at their new abode; but he lent a hand towards emptying the waggon of his workman’s packages, and gave him notice that he should be glad to see him back the first possible moment.
“You will soon find what great people such as we are here,” said Ellen, laughing. “This is the place to grow proud in. No more lounging about the fields, Frank; no more leaning over gates chewing straws, while nobody inquires for one. You will never need to touch your hat and ask for work here; people will come begging you to be so very kind as to put up a door for any pay you please. This is the place to grow proud in.”
Frank observed, with a grave smile, that pride was dangerous to one in Ellen’s place.
“Well, then, I will be proud of you, and you shall be proud of me; and no harm can come of that.”
The first time that the brother and sister could obtain a few minutes’ conversation without being overheard, Frank inquired,
“Now, Ellen, tell me straight forward. How do you like your change?”
“Why, I more than half like it; but there are some things I do not like.—It is a fine thing to be so well off, and to know that I shall be so: and I do not mind the work, though it is rather hard, to be sure; and my cows are nothing but a credit to me, and I have seen no animals to be afraid of when I go out milking, though some of them leap about very strangely indeed; and my mistress makes much of me, as I told you; and her little worries are not much to be wondered at when one thinks of the confusion we live in just now; and I dare say there will be an end of them when we get our soap and candles made out of the house, and another hand or two to help in the brewing and washing. And then to think that father and you are so well off——”
“But tell me what there is that you do not like.”
Ellen almost shuddered when she whispered that her fellow servant, who ate at the same table, and slept in the same room, and was her companion almost all day, was a convict, and had been sent to this country for robbing an aged mistress who had confided in her, and deserved gratitude instead of treachery from her. To be compelled to hold daily and hourly intercourse with such a person was a very great evil, and one which doubled Frank’s anxiety about his sister. He was glad to hear that there was a probability of the woman marrying as soon as she could obtain a remission of her servitude by steady conduct.
A half smile which he perceived on Ellen’s lips when this part of the story was being told, made him question her further respecting the evils of her situation, or the trials which she might not be disposed to consider exactly as evils. The idea in her mind was that which he suspected,—that she might quit her service before her convict companion.—Frank looked graver than ever. Who—what—where was he,—the person that seemed to have made advances in Ellen’s good graces already? She was eager to explain that there was no one in particular yet. It was too early for her to have looked about and settled her mind yet;—but there was this one, and that one, and the other one, that carried her pail for her, morning and evening, however busy he might be; or was ready to teach her how to clean and card wool; or showed her what a pretty little homestead he was about to have in the neighbourhood, and intimated how happy she might be as the mistress of it.
“They hinder my work sadly, and their own too,” continued she, blushing, “for all I tell them that I have nothing to say to any body yet. I am so afraid any of them should have been convicts, (though I am sure Harry Moore never was;) and I dare not ask mistress any thing about them.”them.”
“Ask her, by all means,” said Frank. “Or I will ask your master, if you wish it. They only can tell us, and it is a point we must find out. Meantime, keep to your business as quietly as you can. What makes you so sure that Moore (is not that his name?) was never a convict?”
Ellen could give no better reason than that she could wager her life upon it. She thought her brother grown very pertinacious on a sudden, because this was not perfectly satisfactory to him; but Frank was not pertinacious—only wary and affectionate.
It was very well for a man of Castle’s irritable temper to be made a shepherd, instead of a labourer at home, within sight and hearing of all the bustle and difficulty occasioned by much pressure of work and few hands to do it. He could not have borne to be, as his wife said, driven from pillar to post,—called off from one thing before he had done it, to do something else to which he was altogether unaccustomed. It suited him much better to be out upon the downs after the sheep; though even in that quiet place he had his troubles. The sheep-walk was too extensive to be under the management of one person; and Castle’s brother-shepherd was not a very congenial companion. He was a gentleman convict;—a young man who had gamed away his little fortune, and then taken to swindling, for which he had been transported. Being unequal to hard work, and having no mechanical skill, he was sent out to tend sheep; an employment as little suitable as might be to his social dispositions and active habits. The two reluctant companions agreed only in their inclination to grumble.
“They call this a fine scene,” observed the young man, “but it does not suit my taste. I had rather see our sheep in the Smithfield pens than on these downs. Then one misses the London cries, however much the magpies chatter here. As for the cooing of the doves, it really depresses the spirits. People talk of the stars being so brilliant here,—like golden lamps; but I like real lamps better. A row of them in Pall Mall is worth a hemisphere of stars.”
“I don’t know much about lamplight,” replied Castle, “having been too poor to burn candles at home, and so going to bed in the twilight; but this place is so lonesome, I sometimes wonder whether it is in the world or out of it. All this view is like an old deserted park, to be sure; but where is the squire’s house, or the church steeple, and the children coming out of school? There is no public-house far or near; and no parson or his lady to speak a word to one: only a young man that comes to read prayers on Sundays in a shed or on the green, and away again to do the same thing somewhere else. Not such a thing have I seen since I came as a carriage with ladies in it; and they say there are no hunts. With all the game there is here, no scarlet jackets ever come in sight from the woods.”
“That is the worst of it,” responded the other grumbler. “We have all the dulness of a country life without its solace of amusement. It was really too tantalizing lately, to see a kangaroo hunt which I could not join. If they would let me take my turn, I might be of some use to them as an experienced huntsman. I should like to hunt opossums till I could get skins enough to make your pretty daughter a cloak worthy to be worn; and——”
Castle here moved off impatiently, having too much paternal pride to listen to convict wooing on Ellen’s behalf. The young man followed him, continuing,
“The snipe-shooting is very choice, I’m told, in the marshes yonder. I must have leave when winter comes on, to go and try my luck. But the hunts are the best things,—more spirited perhaps than you are aware of.”
“Hunts! hunts!” cried Castle. “I see neither deer nor fox. An odd sort of hunting, if you mean killing any of these leaping things, with their queer ways. Why, the little ones don’t run beside their dams, as is natural, but she pops them into her bag, and off she hops, as if she had only two legs. The first I saw, I thought she had happened an accident, and had her fore legs cut short; and I thought she got on wonderfully well considering; and then in a minute appeared a whole herd of them, with their young in their bags.”
“It is a pretty sight to see them come down from the woods at sunrise to feed in the plains. Then is the time to hide behind a thicket, and make sure of one’s game. Which do you prefer, as a bottom dish, kangaroo or bandicoot? In a pie, properly seasoned, it is difficult to say which is the best. I have given many a hint down below that either is much more palatable to me than rations of salt meat.”
Castle, who thought no man need desire more in the way of diet than to eat meat every day, looked with contempt on the grimaces of his companion over his ample supply of beef, wheaten bread, and cider.
“If you want to hunt,” said Castle, “I wish you would kill off the vile beasts that have been making havoc among my lambs. I might have got at one, but I was downright scared with its ugliness.”
“Was it the hyena or the devil?”
“O, the devil, to judge by its looks. It is as big as a middle-sized dog, with the head of an otter, crowded with teeth. It moved very slow, but I could do no better than stare at it.”
“They call it the devil here,” replied the gentleman. “You should dig little pits, and set your dogs upon it when it has fallen in. It will go on worrying your lambs, unless you keep on the watch.”
“Another thing that puts me out,” observed Castle, “is that the beasts are one below another here, as if they were bewitched. In England, we have a horse of one size, and a dog of another, and a rat of another; and none of them is like the rest; but here we have a big kangaroo, and a kangaroo the size of a dog, and another no bigger than a rat; and these last are not real kangaroos. I declare it makes my hair stand up to see a rat leaping like a real kangaroo: just as it would to see a mouse shaking its mane and trotting and cantering like a horse. I have not been used to such freaks, and this is a country I can’t understand.”
“I hope to understand it better,” replied the convict. “I was always fond of roving, and in time I may have explored farther than we can see from these green hills that we both find so dull. What do you mean to do when you get free?”
“They may settle that that got me bound,” replied Castle, testily. Then, struck with a sense of his own ingratitude, he added, “To be sure, if there is no squire’s house, there is no workhouse either; and if I see no acquaintance, there is nobody to taunt me with misfortune; but, on the contrary, they make much of me at home. And there’s——”
“Your daughter.”
“What; my little Susan! Yes, they make a handy little thing of her already, and——”
“I mean the other handy one, Ellen.”
“She“She will do well enough, Sir, I assure you. She has a fine spirit and a steady mind of her own, and a proud brother to take care of her; and that is better than a broken-down father; though it should go hard with me but I would protect her, Sir, if there was no one to do it better.”
So saying, Castle walked off, showing by his manner that he was not sociably disposed.
His wife was much more altered within a short time by her change of circumstances than he. The first thing that seemed to affect her favourably was the use that was made of her little daughter in the household arrangements. When the farmer’s wife found that her new domestic was indolent and indifferent, she endeavoured to make the best of a poor bargain by squeezing as much work as she could out of Susan. The child was willing enough, and proud to find herself of so much use; but her mother was jealous on her account, and began for the first time to show symptoms of tenderness for her. She not only argued in her defence, but helped her when she was more disposed to proceed with her work than to “go and play;” words which had little charm for a child whose associations with play were those of hunger, scolding, mockery, and all the miseries of pauper life. When the farm servants rose at daybreak to go forth for the day, Susan was always ready to jump up at the first word, to replenish the wallets and fill the cans, though her mother turned round in bed, and muttered that it was too soon to get up. She needed no reminding about tending the house-lamb, and feeding the poultry, and dusting as much of the coarse furniture as she could reach. After breakfast, if any one would lift her upon the dresser, or lay the utensils and the bowl of water on the floor, she would wash up without breaking anything: and she was always at hand to carry messages into field or farm-yard, or to help with dinner and supper, or to carry letters to the spot where they were to be deposited in readiness for the postman’s weekly call; and when not able to do anything better, she could scare away the crows and cockatoos from the fields and garden. Her mother thought this a hard life for a little girl: but Susan was stout, rosy, and merry; and the farmer himself found a few minutes now and then to take her on his knee and teach her the alphabet, in preparation for the time when a schoolmaster could be brought within reach. The first thing Mrs. Castle did heartily was washing up, one day when Susan had nearly scalded her fingers. She took more and more of the child’s work from her, and still Susan turned to something else; so that ere long, both were pretty fully employed; and in proportion as the once reckless and lazy pauper became interested in the occupations going on around her,—in proportion as she bestirred herself to get the baking done while the house was clear of the men, and the washing over in time to have a chat in the evening,—she grew like the active and tidy housewife she would never have become in her own land.
A circumstance which hastened this change was the opportunity she now had of gratifying one taste,—almost the only taste she ever had, and which seemed to have died out under the hardships of her condition: a taste for gardening. When a girl, she had had a garden; and as long as her husband had owned an acre of ground, she took possession of a corner of it for her pinks and roses, under pretence of growing vegetables for the family. From that time to this, nobody had heard her mention fruit or flowers; but Ellen bore in mind her love for them now when the remembrance might be turned to some purpose. She mentioned, in her step-mother’s presence, that her master was trying what he could do in the management of vines, for the growth of which the climate was peculiarly favourable; and that whether he got any wine or not, his trouble would be more than repaid by his profits from his other fruits. The peaches, to be sure, were not of the best sort, though so plentiful as to lie rotting on the ground, after bushels had been thrown to the pigs; but the apricots, and yet more the raspberries, which grew to such a size and in such quantity as no English person would believe without seeing them, were likely to prove a good speculation, being sent to a distance in the form of jam. Sugar being remarkably cheap in this country, there was little risk in trying a batch of sweetmeats, which were to be sent to India for sale by a vessel from Launceston. The idea was caught up as Ellen expected it would be; and as the farmer and his wife did not take to the scheme of fruit-growing as heartily as was desired, the emigrant family tried whether they could not get a garden of their own. The small part of their wages which they were yet at liberty to use was applied to the purchase of a plot of ground, and Frank found time to work in it, and Ellen procured wherewith to stock it, and their step-mother haunted it early and late, before and after work,—and Castle himself relaxed his brow, and spoke in a tone that was not querulous, as he looked round upon that which, however small, was so much more than he had ever expected to possess again,—a family property.
“Look at father,” whispered Ellen to her brother. “I have not seen him and her arm-in-arm since I was no bigger than Susan.”
“He is like a prisoner that has been quite shut up coming for the first time into the gaol court,” said Frank. “The feel of the air makes him push his hat up from over his eyes. Only set him quite free, and he will uncover his brows, and lift up his head like a man.”
“And so he ought,” replied Ellen, “since it is for no fault of his own that he has been bound down to poverty.”
“Ah! poverty is a cold and dreary prison, Ellen. That puts me in mind,—have you seen, I wonder, any thing that has surprised you very much lately,—any thing that you would like to tell me if you were sure of not being overheard, or of not being thought fanciful?”
“The word ‘prison’ put me in mind of something that I have been wanting to talk to you about almost this month past.—I don’t know how to believe my own eyes about it, but I am sure I have seen Jerry in our farm-yard at night, and lurking about among the sheds before most of our folks are stirring in the morning.”
“Aye; but was he all alone, Ellen?”
“Bob was never with him, that I could see; but he seemed to me to be waiting for somebody off our premises, and I thought it must naturally be me. So twice I ran out to catch him; but once I was crossed by two of our people that I don’t choose to come in the way of; and the other time he was whispering with the same two, so that I dared not go near. How could he get liberty? and what could he be about?”
“Something very deep, I am afraid,” replied her brother. “As to the liberty,—it is no difficult matter for convicts who behave pretty regularly to get hours of liberty at the beginning and end of the day; and the lads being employed on roadmaking so near, accounts for our getting a glimpse of them sometimes. But what I am uneasy about is Jerry’s having so much to say to the convicts at your place and mine;—for I have seen him at Stapleton’s oftener than you have among your people. I am afraid of some plot——”
“O, mercy!” cried Ellen; “what sort of a plot?”
“That is more than I can say. Sometimes they plot, I hear, for nothing worse than to escape; but some have had to do with the natives, (who are little better than wild beasts), and have brought them down upon the farms, setting them to steal and even to murder; for which they pay the poor savage creatures by helping themselves with their wives.”
Ellen trembled while she asked whether any of the natives could be in the neighbourhood.—Her brother hoped not, as the government had declared that they were driven back among the mountains, where they must soon die out as their wild cattle had done: but as long as any convicts were disposed to bush-ranging,—and some did actually escape every year,—he could not, for his part, feel quite secure. He thought he should speak to Stapleton about it. Meanwhile, he desired Ellen to drop not a syllable that should alarm her father, or anybody else.
“I hope, sister,” he continued with some hesitation, “I hope Harry Moore has no acquaintance, more or less, with Jerry, or any other such people.”
Ellen’s eyes flashed as they used to do when she was a passionate little girl at school.
“Harry!” she cried. “Harry Moore have any sneaking doings! Harry Moore keep bad company! You don’t know Harry a bit better than the very first day,—the day when you thought he might be a convict himself.”
“No need to be angry, Ellen. He might just know him enough, you see, to say ‘How d’ye do?’ when they meet, and to judge how often Jerry might fairly be here.”
“After all,” said Ellen, sighing, “it is my father’s own son that I flew off about his being acquainted with; so there is no need for me to be so proud. No; Harry does not know either of the lads, even by sight; but I shall tell him what you have been saying, though nobody else, Frank.”
“Certainly. Conceal nothing that weighs upon your mind from Harry, any more than if he was your husband already. I look to him to help me to keep an eye upon Bob, who may be made something of, they say, little hope as there is for Jerry. Bob works within bounds at spare hours, instead of roving into the bush, or prowling about the settlers’ farms, where he has no business. Bob must be saving money fast, unless he has unseen ways of spending it. He works hard, and is well paid for his extra labour. He may have the advantage of me, after all; and settle on a place of his own before me.”
“Because he got a free passage as a punishment. That is really very hard, Frank.”
“Harry Moore will be the first at liberty, however, Ellen; and that I am glad of on your account. I am soon to begin building you a house, at over hours; and you may depend on my doing my best to have it all complete by the time the six months are gone.”
“Six months!” cried Ellen.
“Why, I do not mean that you need wait till then. You may fairly marry as soon as you like;—and many in our own country would be glad to have that said to them. I only mentioned six months as the time when Harry would be all his own master. Then I shall hope to see you milking a cow of your own.—Meantime, till I have found out more about Jerry, be cautious how you get out of reach of those that will take care of you.”
Ellen sighed, and smiled, and wondered which was the strangest world,—the one she had left behind, or the new one which seemed, after several months, nearly as foreign as when she had entered it. She had no doubt which was the pleasantest. How could she, when a vague fear and thorough dislike of some of the people in the neighbourhood were the only set-off against the prosperity of all whom she loved, and her own bright prospects with such a husband as Harry Moore had promised to be?
Though convicts were unhappily supplied at an increasing rate from the mother-country, the demand for free labourers throughout Van Diemen’s Land became more urgent continually. The young men who settled either as wool-growers, farmers, or labourers, wanted wives. All above the lowest rank needed servants. The sheep were too many for the shepherds. There was too little produce in proportion to the land; and too few dwellings in proportion to the produce; too much or too little of almost everything, for want of a due proportion of labour. The same thing is the case at home; only here the proportions are exactly reversed. It will be very strange if in a short time we do not rectify the condition of each country by the exchange which would be equally beneficial to both.
Ireland and Van Diemen’s Land are islands of about the same size. They are each favoured by nature in an unusual degree, having all the requisites of fertility, variety and beauty which can fit them to be the abodes of a thriving and happy population. The arable lands and pastures of both are excellent. The one has fisheries of salmon, herring and cod; the other of whales, and seals for export, and of a large variety of fish for home consumption. Both have fine natural harbours, ridges of protecting mountains, stores of mineral treasure, inland lakes, and fresh springs wherever man may incline to fix his abode. Both have, with all these advantages, their natural hardships and social troubles.
The natural hardships of each might be almost entirely removed by a well-conducted reciprocity of assistance. Ireland has a population of eight million; Van Diemen’s Land of only twenty-five thousand. In Ireland, multitudes of half-starved wretches pine in idleness, and many die by the way-side, of that wasting of limb and heart and life which is the form in which poverty perpetrates murder. In Van Diemen’s Land, the labourer is liable to be worn out by toil, and fretted by seeing half his produce rotting on the ground, or wastefully bestowed on swine; while articles which he has always considered almost as necessary as food cannot by any means be procured. With him, abundance is not wealth, and plenty brings not the happiness for which he looked. If the wide sea did not lie between, he would beckon to a dozen Irishmen to come and nourish themselves with his superfluity, while he gathers about him the comforts which spring out of their industry, and solaces himself with a due portion of that repose, without a certain share of which the best ends of life cannot be attained. Why should not a bridge be built across this wide sea with the capital which is now unproductively expended on the maintenance of these paupers? Why should not the charity which cannot in Ireland give subsistence to one without taking it from another, be employed in a way which gives support to many, to the benefit of many more? Whatever funds are judiciously employed on emigration are used as if to bring to a junction with the over-peopled country a rich region, into which a hungry multitude may be poured, to the relief of the old, and the great advantage of the new land. If the wealthy among the inhabitants of the old country would gladly if they could, call up such a new region, drest in fertility, from the surrounding sea, why do they delay effecting what is to their purpose the same thing? Since they cannot move the land to their poor, why do they not agree to devote what they now give in baneful charity to removing their poor to the new land? Till such a general agreement is arrived at, why do not individuals thus apply their charity, knowing that thus they not only relieve for a time, but establish for life;—that they not only assist the immediate objects of their bounty, but provide for their descendants of many generations? The rich should choose for their almoners the agents of emigration. Those who have little to give should unite their resources to send abroad a few of the young labourers of both sexes who are eager to go. Those who have no money to give, should bestow their services in spreading the knowledge of the facts how poor-laws aggravate, and emigration alleviates, if it does not remove, pauperism.
If this had been done long ago, the places whither we now transport our criminals might at present have been as remarkable for the good moral condition of their inhabitants as they actually are for the reverse. If it were now to be done effectually, it is yet possible that Botany Bay may in time outgrow the odium attached to its name, and become the chosen resort of the upright and industrious. Indigence causes crime; and by the prevention of indigence and its consequent crime, we may become better able than we now fancy ourselves to dispense with the institution of penal settlements;—whose results are as disgraceful to British wisdom as that of a legal pauper provision.
When Jerry and Bob were landed at Launceston, they were as unable as those who sent them were disinclined, to reflect on the difference between their being sent there, innocent, to provide an honest livelihood for themselves, and being deposited as a curse upon this new region,—both guilty and one hardened, proscribed by the old country and dreaded by the new, and prepared to baffle all the professed objects of their punishment. The guilt of these lads was distinctly referrible to indigence. Their parents could give them little wherewith to provide for their bodies, and nothing of that care and instruction which were peculiarly needful to them in their circumstances of temptation. Being thus made outcasts, they acted as outcasts; from which time it became a struggle between themselves and society which could inflict the most misery upon the other. They put society in fear, violated its rights, mocked its institutions, and helped to corrupt its yet innocent members. Society inflicted on them disgrace, bondage, and banishment; and from all this misery no good resulted, however much was proposed.
The judge who pronounced sentence on Jerry and Bob told them that it was necessary to the security of society that they should be prevented from inflicting any further injury by their evil deeds.—There are two ways by which such prevention may be accomplished; one by the death, the other by the reformation, of the offender. Death was too severe a punishment for the offence of these lads; the judge must therefore have contemplated their reformation, or have thought only of England when he spoke of society. Did the law gain its object?
“I say, Bob,” said Jerry one evening, when they had got the leave it is so easy to obtain to go out of bounds, and work for themselves over-hours,—“I say, do you remember what that fellow in Newgate read us about that cursed gaol where the people are mewed up as close as if they were in a school, and closer?”
“What that where they are shut in by themselves all night, and hard worked all day, and nobody may speak but the parson, and he praying and preaching night and morning, till a fellow’s spirit is downright broken? Remember it! aye; and glad enough I have been many a time that we are not there. I’d rather be hanged twice over.”
“Hanged! Yes: there’s not much in hanging. I have seen it several times, and thought to myself, ‘if that’s all, I should not mind it.’ But we are the best off, after all. I was horribly afraid, when old wiggy began to whimper, that it was to be the hulks, or a long prison, instead of going abroad; for one never knows what they mean when they say ‘transportation.’ You would not have looked so downcast as you did if you had known what was before you.“
“Not I. I never thought to be made of so much consequence. ’Tis good fun to see them quarrel which shall have us, and to get them to bid rum and brandy against each other to seduce us away. We that could not get dry bread at home,—how easy it is for us to fill our stomachs with the choice of the land, and get drunk with our masters at the end of the day,—our masters being luckily of our own sort!”
“Yours, that is, Bob; not mine. But I don’t know but I like mine as well. He gives me plenty of spare hours, on condition of my bringing back what I earn. You should have seen what a fright he looked in when somebody said the folks were growing moral at home, and no more convicts were to be sent out.”
“He was as sorry as some honester folks would be glad, Jerry. But as for dividing your earnings with your master,—they are a queer sort of earnings, I have a notion.”
“Easily got enough. ’Tis only just prowling on the downs in a dark night to meet a stray sheep; or making a venture into the fold. Then, if one gets so far as into the bush, there are other ways that you know nothing of yet, Bob.”
“I never can make out how you get seal oil from the woods; being as we are thirty miles from the sea.”
Jerry laughed, and offered to introduce his brother one day to somebody in the bush he little dreamed of.
“Do you mean, Frank, poor fellow, or Ellen? They would not go so far to meet you.”
“Do you think I would ask them? It will be time enough for me to notice Frank when I have a house of my own to ask him into. I shall be the master of such as he before his time is out.”
“You need not carry yourself so high, Jerry. You are in a worse bondage than he just now.”
“Curse them that put me into it, and let them see if I bear it long! However, hold your tongue about it now. There is the moon through the trees, and the free turf under our feet. What a pity there is nobody with a heavy purse likely to pass while we are resting in the shadow under this clump! ’Tis such dull work when there is nothing better to be had than sheep and poultry, and so many of them that they are scarcely worth the taking!”
“I like roving for the sake of roving,” said Bob. “I have plenty of mutton without stealing it.”
“I like robbing for the sake of robbing,” replied his brother; “and the mutton is only the price of my frolic. But there is something I like better. Let us be off, and I will show you, (if you’ll swear not to blab,) how you may get such sport as you little think for. Learn to handle a gun, and to cross a farm-yard like a cat, and to tap at a back-door like a mouse within a wainscot, and you may laugh at the judge and the law, and all the dogs they have set to worry us.”
“Why no, thank’ee,” replied Bob. “I am trying after a character, you know, so I shall stay where I am. I’ll light my pipe; and I’ve got rum enough to last till morning both for myself and somebody I rather expect to meet me.”
“Take care she be not too deep for you, Bob. If ever you want a wife with no more sense than a monkey, and not half as many tricks, ask me, and I will show you how to get one.”
So much for the reformation of the offender. The other kind of security on which the judge expatiated was that afforded by the criminal being made a warning.
A waggon load of new convict-labourers arrived at the Dairy Plains one day, when the accustomed gang was at work on the road which was not yet completed. The masters who happened to be present were too much taken up with observing the new-comers to pay any attention to the looks of their labourers. They did not see the winks, and the side-long smiles, they did not hear the snapping of fingers behind their backs; they had no suspicion that some in the waggon were old acquaintances of those on the road. On the first opportunity after the fresh men were left with the others, and only one or two over-lookers near, there was a prodigious hand-shaking and congratulation, and questioning. “How did you get over?” “How did you manage to get sent here?” “How do you like transportation?” “You’ll soon learn to know your own luck.” “This is a fine country, is it not?” &c. &c.
“I was so cursedly dull after you all went away,” observed one of the new-comers, “there was nothing to stay for: but I very near got sent to Sidney.”
“Well; you could soon have got away, either home or here. But how do you find yourself off?”
“With a bed to myself and a blanket, and rare good living to what I had when I was an honest man. The thing I don’t like is the work; but they say we are to have plenty of spirits.”
“To be sure; and as to the work,—what do the poor wretches at home do but work as hard as you, and for less than you can get in spare hours. But where’s Sam? Why did not he come too?”
“He got baulked, as he deserved for being a fool. What did he do but send his sister to the justice to know how much he must steal to be transported, and no more? The justice set the parson at him; and between the two, they have cowed him, poor fellow, and he will never better his condition.”
“Perhaps he is afraid. Perhaps he believes what the judge said about our being a warning. And yet he tipped me the wink when that was said, and when some of the pretty ones in the gallery began to cry.”
“He knows better than you think. If you were as moped as a linnet in a cage, he would know nothing of it; because you are too far off for him to see what became of you, in that case; but, being as you are, a merry, rollicking set, he would like to be among you; and that sort of news travels fast.”
Another of the party did not like his lot so well. He said nothing of the disgrace, though he felt it; but he complained of the toil, of the tyranny of the masters, of the spite and bickerings of his companions.
“If you don’t like your company, change it,” replied one to whom he had opened his mind. “Such a good hand as you are at a burglary, I don’t wonder that you had rather steal enough in one night to live upon for a month, than work as commoner hands do. You had better go back. Jerry will tell you how. Nothing is easier.”
“Well; but there is my little woman yonder, that they were so kind as to send over at the same time; how is she to get back? She can’t turn sailor, and get her passage home in that way.”
“Trust her for making terms with some gull of a sailor,” replied the other, laughing. “It is only following an old trade for a particular reason; and you’ll give her leave till you touch land again. But let me hear before you go; there are some acquaintance of mine in London that will be glad to know you; and you may chance to help one another; though, to be sure, you take a higher line.”
“Are you thinking of sending over the fee they raised for your defence?”
“I did intend it, as a point of honour; but they assure me they made a good bargain of it as it was. They could have paid the fee three times over out of the plate-chest they stole for it. So I don’t know that I need trouble myself.”
“So while Counsellor H—— was preaching about your being tried that people might be safe, there was another robbery going on to pay him his fees. That’s rare! You should go back, (since the way is so easy,) and pick Counsellor H—’s pocket. That will mend the joke.”
So much for the security to society from the exhibition of this kind of warning.
Ellen’s wedding day drew near. Frank and Harry Moore had toiled together at spare hours to erect and fit up a convenient dwelling; and there was no fear whatever but that she and her husband would be amply supplied with all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life. Her father began to smile upon her, though he muttered complaints of there being so many changes always going on that none of them ever knew when they were settled. Her step-mother, though still hinting that the girl knew what she was about when she was in such a hurry to come away from a poor parish, seemed very well satisfied to have matters so arranged, and rather proud than otherwise of belonging to Ellen. The farmer and his wife whom Ellen served sighed when they found she was going to leave them, and observed that it was always the way, as soon as they got suited with a dairy maid; but as she agreed to go on taking care of their cows till they could obtain another damsel in her place from Hobart Town, they treated her very graciously. The only serious drawback to her comfort was that Harry’s fellow-labourers would go on courting her, though they knew she was engaged, and that this caused Harry to be more jealous than she felt there was any occasion for, or than she could easily excuse. She had no other fault to find with Harry; but she was more than once on the point of breaking off the match on this account, and if it had not been for Frank’s interposition, and his assurances that such feelings were very natural in Harry, she would have thrown away her own happiness for want of being sufficiently aware of the danger of such a position as hers to a girl of less principle than herself.—A circumstance happened, a few days before her marriage, which everybody else thought very disastrous; but which she could not think so, since it established a perfect understanding between Harry and herself.
On the morning of the 21st of December,—the height of summer in Van Diemen’s Land,—Frank appeared, breathless, in the farm-yard whither Ellen was just going to milk her cows; Castle at the same moment was seen at some distance, hastening from the downs where he ought to have been tending his sheep at this hour; Harry Moore next leaped the gate and wiped his brows, seeming too much agitated to speak; the farmer pulled his hat over his eyes, in anticipation of the news that was coming, and the women crowded together in terror.—Ellen was the first to ask what was the matter.
“Have your men decamped, farmer?” inquired Frank.
“Yes, almost to a man. Have Stapleton’s?”
“Two out of four; and every settler in the neighbourhood misses more or less this morning.”
“Now the devil and his imps will be on us in the shape of a gang of bush-rangersbush-rangers,” muttered the farmer.
“Not on us, farmer. They will more likely go to some distant part where their faces are strange.”
“If they do, they will send strange faces here, which comes to the same thing; for one bush-ranger’s face is as devilish as another. One of us must be off in search of a guard, and our shepherds, and indeed all of us, must carry arms.”
Ellen turned pale at the mention of arms. Harry drew to her side, and told her in a tone of forced calmness that three of her lovers were gone.
“Gone!” cried Ellen joyfully. “Gone for good?”
“Gone for ever as lovers of yours.”
“Thank God!” said she. “Better watch night and day with arms in our hands than have your head full of fancies, Harry. You will never believe again that I can like such people: and you shall teach me to fire a gun, so as to defend the house while you are away; and I shall not be afraid of anything when you are at home.”
Harry was so alert and happy from this moment that one would have thought there had been a certainty that no bush-rangers would ever come again, instead of a threatening that those who had till now been servants would soon reappear as enemies.
Whatever arms could be found up were put into the hands of the shepherds, as they were most in danger from violence for the sake of their flocks. They were desired to keep in sight of one another so far as that each should be able to make a certain signal agreed on, in case of his having reason to suppose that there were enemies at hand. Frank departed immediately for Launceston, for powder and ball, and a further supply of labourers to fill the places of those who had eloped. Another messenger was sent to the seat of government to give information of what had happened. During the absence of her brother, Ellen heard enough of the evils inflicted by runaway convicts to alarm a stouter heart than any young girl devotedly attached to her lover ever had; and to add to her uneasiness, her father once more became gloomy, and poor little Susan clung to her side wherever she went. Harry left his work twenty times a day to tell her that all was quiet, and bid her not be alarmed. During the day, she followed his advice pretty well; but in the evenings, so many tales of horror went round that, though she did not believe the half of them, her confidence was shaken; and she went to bed shuddering to think of what might have happened before morning.
The bush-rangers seemed to be less dreaded by the settlers than the natives. The bush-rangers came down in a troop, carried off what they wanted, occasionally shooting a man or two during the process, and then went completely away. The warfare of the natives was much more horrible,—their movements being stealthy, their revenge insatiable, their cruelty revolting. They would hover about for days or weeks before committing an outrage, planning the most wicked way of proceeding, and seizing the most defenceless moment for pouncing on their victims. Castle asked aloud, what Ellen inquired in her heart, why all this was not told them before they came, and what there was in wealth which could compensate for such alarms as they were now suffering under? Frank satisfied her, in some degree, when he returned on the 24th,—the day before her wedding. He told her that though the first settlers had suffered dreadfully from the murders and plunder of the hostile natives and runaway convicts, this was not a sufficient reason to deter other settlers from following, since, owing to the vigorous measures of the Australian government, such outrages had been repressed and nearly put an end to. He pointed out to her that the horrible tales she had been told related to former times, and assured her that, except in some districts near the wilder parts of the island, the face of a savage had not been seen for years.—Ellen pointed to the mountain wastes on which their settlement bordered, and Frank acknowledged that the Dairy Plains lay as open to an attack as most newly-settled districts; but he had been assured at Launceston that there was no need to terrify themselves with apprehensions as long as they were armed and properly careful in their movements; since the sound of a musket would disperse a whole troop of savages, and they attacked no place that was not left absolutely defenceless. He had distinctly ascertained what he had before conjectured,—that it was not the practice of runaway convicts to plunder settlements where their faces were known, and that the only danger therefore arose from the probability that they might injure the savages, who might come down to wreak their revenge upon the innocent settlers.
“If this is all,” sighed Ellen, “there is nothing——”
“To prevent your being married to-morrow, Ellen. So I have been telling Harry.”
“There was no occasion, thank you. I never meant to put it off. The more danger, the more reason for our being together. Besides, it will help to take father’s mind off from his discontent. He has been wishing himself back in Kent every hour since you went.”
“Indeed! Well now, I think that such an occasional fright as this is little to the hardship of living as we did at A——, to say nothing of the certainty of there soon being an end to it. The only two evils our settlers suffer from will grow less every year; the scarcity of labour, and danger of theft. To make up for these, we have the finest climate in the world, abundance of all that we at present want, and the prospect of seeing our children, and their children again, well provided for.—But you must be in a hurry now, dear, considering what has to be done to-morrow. So go, and cheer up, and trouble your head no more about black or white thieves.”
Ellen had, however, little more than usual to do this day, as hers was not the kind of wedding to require preparation. The travelling chaplain who was to come and perform the Christmas service, was to marry the young people, and thus only was the day to be marked as different from any other. The settlers, no doubt, thought much of their friends in England, and of the festivities which are there enjoyed by all but those whose poverty deprives them of the means: but the seasons are so entirely reversed in Van Diemen’s Land,—it is so impossible amidst the brilliant verdure, the heat and long days of the Christmas season there, to adopt the festivities carried on at home beside the hearth and over the punch-bowl, that Christmas-day was allowed to pass quietly, and the grand holidays of the year were wisely made on the anniversaries of their settlement in their present abodes,—of their entrance on a life of prosperity.