For the Term of His Natural Life Part 54

"Very well; then there is only a prisoner and Dr. Macklewain; for if there has been foul play the convict-constable will not accuse the authorities. Moreover, the doctor does not agree with you."

"No?" cried North, amazed.

"No. You see, then, my dear sir, how necessary it is not to be hasty in matters of this kind. I really think--pardon me for my plainness--that your goodness of heart has misled you. Captain Burgess sends a report of the case. He says the man was sentenced to a hundred lashes for gross insolence and disobedience of orders, that the doctor was present during the punishment, and that the man was thrown off by his directions after he had received fifty-six lashes. That, after a short interval, he was found to be dead, and that the doctor made a post-mortem examination and found disease of the heart."

North started. "A post-mortem? I never knew there had been one held."

"Here is the medical certificate," said Vickers, holding it out, "accompanied by the copies of the evidence of the constable and a letter from the Commandant."

Poor North took the papers and read them slowly. They were apparently straightforward enough. Aneurism of the ascending aorta was given as the cause of death; and the doctor frankly admitted that had he known the deceased to be suffering from that complaint he would not have permitted him to receive more than twenty-five lashes. "I think Macklewain is an honest man," said North, doubtfully. "He would not dare to return a false certificate. Yet the circ.u.mstances of the case--the horrible condition of the prisoners--the frightful story of that boy--"

"I cannot enter into these questions, Mr. North. My position here is to administer the law to the best of my ability, not to question it."

North bowed his head to the reproof. In some sort of justly unjust way, he felt that he deserved it. "I can say no more, sir. I am afraid I am helpless in this matter--as I have been in others. I see that the evidence is against me; but it is my duty to carry my efforts as far as I can, and I will do so." Vickers bowed stiffly and wished him good morning. Authority, however well-meaning in private life, has in its official capacity a natural dislike to those dissatisfied persons who persist in pushing inquiries to extremities.

North, going out with saddened spirits, met in the pa.s.sage a beautiful young girl. It was Sylvia, coming to visit her father. He lifted his hat and looked after her. He guessed that she was the daughter of the man he had left--the wife of the Captain Frere concerning whom he had heard so much. North was a man whose morbidly excited brain was p.r.o.ne to strange fancies; and it seemed to him that beneath the clear blue eyes that flashed upon him for a moment, lay a hint of future sadness, in which, in some strange way, he himself was to bear part. He stared after her figure until it disappeared; and long after the dainty presence of the young bride--trimly booted, tight-waisted, and neatly-gloved--had faded, with all its sunshine of gaiety and health, from out of his mental vision, he still saw those blue eyes and that cloud of golden hair.

CHAPTER XVII. CAPTAIN AND MRS. FRERE.

Sylvia had become the wife of Maurice Frere. The wedding created excitement in the convict settlement, for Maurice Frere, though oppressed by the secret shame at open matrimony which affects men of his character, could not in decency--seeing how "good a thing for him" was this wealthy alliance--demand unceremonious nuptials. So, after the fashion of the town--there being no "continent" or "Scotland" adjacent as a hiding place for bridal blushes--the alliance was entered into with due pomp of ball and supper; bride and bridegroom departing through the golden afternoon to the nearest of Major Vickers's stations. Thence it had been arranged they should return after a fortnight, and take ship for Sydney.

Major Vickers, affectionate though he was to the man whom he believed to be the saviour of his child, had no notion of allowing him to live on Sylvia's fortune. He had settled his daughter's portion--ten thousand pounds--upon herself and children, and had informed Frere that he expected him to live upon an income of his own earning. After many consultations between the pair, it had been arranged that a civil appointment in Sydney would best suit the bridegroom, who was to sell out of the service. This notion was Frere's own. He never cared for military duty, and had, moreover, private debts to no inconsiderable amount. By selling his commission he would be enabled at once to pay these debts, and render himself eligible for any well-paid post under the Colonial Government that the interest of his father-in-law, and his own reputation as a convict disciplinarian, might procure. Vickers would fain have kept his daughter with him, but he unselfishly acquiesced in the scheme, admitting that Frere's plea as to the comforts she would derive from the society to be found in Sydney was a valid one.

"You can come over and see us when we get settled, papa," said Sylvia, with a young matron's pride of place, "and we can come and see you.

Hobart Town is very pretty, but I want to see the world."

"You should go to London, Poppet," said Maurice, "that's the place.

Isn't it, sir?"

"Oh, London!" cries Sylvia, clapping her hands. "And Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, and St. James's Palace, and Hyde Park, and Fleet-street!

'Sir,' said Dr. Johnson, 'let us take a walk down Fleet-street.' Do you remember, in Mr. Croker's book, Maurice? No, you don't I know, because you only looked at the pictures, and then read Pierce Egan's account of the Topping Fight between Bob Gaynor and Ned Neal, or some such person."

"Little girls should be seen and not heard," said Maurice, between a laugh and a blush. "You have no business to read my books."

"Why not?" she asked, with a gaiety which already seemed a little strained; "husband and wife should have no secrets from each other, sir. Besides, I want you to read my books. I am going to read Sh.e.l.ley to you."

"Don't, my dear," said Maurice simply. "I can't understand him."

This little scene took place at the dinner-table of Frere's cottage, in New Town, to which Major Vickers had been invited, in order that future plans might be discussed.

"I don't want to go to Port Arthur," said the bride, later in the evening. "Maurice, there can be no necessity to go there."

"Well," said Maurice. "I want to have a look at the place. I ought to be familiar with all phases of convict discipline, you know."

"There is likely to be a report ordered upon the death of a prisoner,"

said Vickers. "The chaplain, a fussy but well-meaning person, has been memorializing about it. You may as well do it as anybody else, Maurice."

"Ay. And save the expenses of the trip," said Maurice.

"But it is so melancholy," cried Sylvia.

"The most delightful place in the island, my dear. I was there for a few days once, and I really was charmed."

It was remarkable--so Vickers thought--how each of these newly-mated ones had caught something of the other's manner of speech. Sylvia was less choice in her mode of utterance; Frere more so. He caught himself wondering which of the two methods both would finally adopt.

"But those dogs, and sharks, and things. Oh, Maurice, haven't we had enough of convicts?"

"Enough! Why, I'm going to make my living out of 'em," said Maurice, with his most natural manner.

Sylvia sighed.

"Play something, darling," said her father; and so the girl, sitting down to the piano, trilled and warbled in her pure young voice, until the Port Arthur question floated itself away upon waves of melody, and was heard of no more for that time. But upon pursuing the subject, Sylvia found her husband firm. He wanted to go, and he would go. Having once a.s.sured himself that it was advantageous to him to do a certain thing, the native obstinacy of the animal urged him to do it despite all opposition from others, and Sylvia, having had her first "cry" over the question of the visit, gave up the point. This was the first difference of their short married life, and she hastened to condone it. In the sunshine of Love and Marriage--for Maurice at first really loved her; and love, curbing the worst part of him, brought to him, as it brings to all of us, that gentleness and abnegation of self which is the only token and a.s.surance of a love aught but animal--Sylvia's fears and doubts melted away, as the mists melt in the beams of morning. A young girl, with pa.s.sionate fancy, with honest and n.o.ble aspiration, but with the dark shadow of her early mental sickness brooding upon her childlike nature, Marriage made her a woman, by developing in her a woman's trust and pride in the man to whom she had voluntarily given herself. Yet by-and-by out of this sentiment arose a new and strange source of anxiety. Having accepted her position as a wife, and put away from her all doubts as to her own capacity for loving the man to whom she had allied herself, she began to be haunted by a dread lest he might do something which would lessen the affection she bore him. On one or two occasions she had been forced to confess that her husband was more of an egotist than she cared to think. He demanded of her no great sacrifices--had he done so she would have found, in making them, the pleasure that women of her nature always find in such self-mortification--but he now and then intruded on her that disregard for the feeling of others which was part of his character. He was fond of her--almost too pa.s.sionately fond, for her staider liking--but he was unused to thwart his own will in anything, least of all in those seeming trifles, for the consideration of which true selfishness bethinks itself. Did she want to read when he wanted to walk, he good-humouredly put aside her book, with an a.s.sumption that a walk with him must, of necessity, be the most pleasing thing in the world. Did she want to walk when he wanted to rest, he laughingly set up his laziness as an all-sufficient plea for her remaining within doors. He was at no pains to conceal his weariness when she read her favourite books to him. If he felt sleepy when she sang or played, he slept without apology. If she talked about a subject in which he took no interest, he turned the conversation remorselessly. He would not have wittingly offended her, but it seemed to him natural to yawn when he was weary, to sleep when he was fatigued, and to talk only about those subjects which interested him. Had anybody told him that he was selfish, he would have been astonished. Thus it came about that Sylvia one day discovered that she led two lives--one in the body, and one in the spirit--and that with her spiritual existence her husband had no share. This discovery alarmed her, but then she smiled at it. "As if Maurice could be expected to take interest in all my silly fancies," said she; and, despite a hara.s.sing thought that these same fancies were not foolish, but were the best and brightest portion of her, she succeeded in overcoming her uneasiness.

"A man's thoughts are different from a woman's," she said; "he has his business and his worldly cares, of which a woman knows nothing. I must comfort him, and not worry him with my follies."

As for Maurice, he grew sometimes rather troubled in his mind. He could not understand his wife. Her nature was an enigma to him; her mind was a puzzle which would not be pieced together with the rectangular correctness of ordinary life. He had known her from a child, had loved her from a child, and had committed a mean and cruel crime to obtain her; but having got her, he was no nearer to the mystery of her than before. She was all his own, he thought. Her golden hair was for his fingers, her lips were for his caress, her eyes looked love upon him alone. Yet there were times when her lips were cold to his kisses, and her eyes looked disdainfully upon his coa.r.s.er pa.s.sion. He would catch her musing when he spoke to her, much as she would catch him sleeping when she read to him--but she awoke with a start and a blush at her forgetfulness, which he never did. He was not a man to brood over these things; and, after some reflective pipes and ineffectual rubbings of his head, he "gave it up". How was it possible, indeed, for him to solve the mental enigma when the woman herself was to him a physical riddle? It was extraordinary that the child he had seen growing up by his side day by day should be a young woman with little secrets, now to be revealed to him for the first time. He found that she had a mole on her neck, and remembered that he had noticed it when she was a child. Then it was a thing of no moment, now it was a marvellous discovery. He was in daily wonderment at the treasure he had obtained. He marvelled at her feminine devices of dress and adornment. Her dainty garments seemed to him perfumed with the odour of sanct.i.ty.

The fact was that the patron of Sarah Purfoy had not met with many virtuous women, and had but just discovered what a dainty morsel Modesty was.

CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE HOSPITAL.

The hospital of Port Arthur was not a cheerful place, but to the tortured and unnerved Rufus Dawes it seemed a paradise. There at least--despite the roughness and contempt with which his gaolers ministered to him--he felt that he was considered. There at least he was free from the enforced companionship of the men whom he loathed, and to whose level he felt, with mental agony unspeakable, that he was daily sinking. Throughout his long term of degradation he had, as yet, aided by the memory of his sacrifice and his love, preserved something of his self-respect, but he felt that he could not preserve it long. Little by little he had come to regard himself as one out of the pale of love and mercy, as one tormented of fortune, plunged into a deep into which the eye of Heaven did not penetrate. Since his capture in the garden of Hobart Town, he had given loose rein to his rage and his despair. "I am forgotten or despised; I have no name in the world; what matter if I become like one of these?" It was under the influence of this feeling that he had picked up the cat at the command of Captain Burgess. As the unhappy Kirkland had said, "As well you as another"; and truly, what was he that he should cherish sentiments of honour or humanity? But he had miscalculated his own capacity for evil. As he flogged, he blushed; and when he flung down the cat and stripped his own back for punishment, he felt a fierce joy in the thought that his baseness would be atoned for in his own blood. Even when, unnerved and faint from the hideous ordeal, he flung himself upon his knees in the cell, he regretted only the impotent ravings that the torture had forced from him. He could have bitten out his tongue for his blasphemous utterings--not because they were blasphemous, but because their utterance, by revealing his agony, gave their triumph to his tormentors. When North found him, he was in the very depth of this abas.e.m.e.nt, and he repulsed his comforter--not so much because he had seen him flogged, as because he had heard him cry.

The self-reliance and force of will which had hitherto sustained him through his self-imposed trial had failed him--he felt--at the moment when he needed it most; and the man who had with unflinched front faced the gallows, the desert, and the sea, confessed his debased humanity beneath the physical torture of the lash. He had been flogged before, and had wept in secret at his degradation, but he now for the first time comprehended how terrible that degradation might be made, for he realized how the agony of the wretched body can force the soul to quit its last poor refuge of a.s.sumed indifference, and confess itself conquered.

Not many months before, one of the companions of the chain, suffering under Burgess's tender mercies, had killed his mate when at work with him, and, carrying the body on his back to the nearest gang, had surrendered himself--going to his death thanking G.o.d he had at last found a way of escape from his miseries, which no one would envy him--save his comrades. The heart of Dawes had been filled with horror at a deed so b.l.o.o.d.y, and he had, with others, commented on the cowardice of the man that would thus shirk the responsibility of that state of life in which it had pleased man and the devil to place him. Now he understood how and why the crime had been committed, and felt only pity.

Lying awake with back that burned beneath its lotioned rags, when lights were low, in the breathful silence of the hospital, he registered in his heart a terrible oath that he would die ere he would again be made such hideous sport for his enemies. In this frame of mind, with such shreds of honour and worth as had formerly clung to him blown away in the whirlwind of his pa.s.sion, he bethought him of the strange man who had deigned to clasp his hand and call him "brother". He had wept no unmanly tears at this sudden flow of tenderness in one whom he had thought as callous as the rest. He had been touched with wondrous sympathy at the confession of weakness made to him, in a moment when his own weakness had overcome him to his shame. Soothed by the brief rest that his fortnight of hospital seclusion had afforded him, he had begun, in a languid and speculative way, to turn his thoughts to religion. He had read of martyrs who had borne agonies unspeakable, upheld by their confidence in Heaven and G.o.d. In his old wild youth he had scoffed at prayers and priests; in the hate to his kind that had grown upon him with his later years he had despised a creed that told men to love one another. "G.o.d is love, my brethren," said the chaplain on Sundays, and all the week the thongs of the overseer cracked, and the cat hissed and swung. Of what practical value was a piety that preached but did not practise? It was admirable for the "religious instructor" to tell a prisoner that he must not give way to evil pa.s.sions, but must bear his punishment with meekness. It was only right that he should advise him to "put his trust in G.o.d". But as a hardened prisoner, convicted of getting drunk in an unlicensed house of entertainment, had said, "G.o.d's terrible far from Port Arthur."

Rufus Dawes had smiled at the spectacle of priests admonishing men, who knew what he knew and had seen what he had seen, for the trivialities of lying and stealing. He had believed all priests impostors or fools, all religion a mockery and a lie. But now, finding how utterly his own strength had failed him when tried by the rude test of physical pain, he began to think that this Religion which was talked of so largely was not a mere bundle of legend and formulae, but must have in it something vital and sustaining. Broken in spirit and weakened in body, with faith in his own will shaken, he longed for something to lean upon, and turned--as all men turn when in such case--to the Unknown. Had now there been at hand some Christian priest, some Christian-spirited man even, no matter of what faith, to pour into the ears of this poor wretch words of comfort and grace; to rend away from him the garment of sullenness and despair in which he had wrapped himself; to drag from him a confession of his unworthiness, his obstinacy, and his hasty judgment, and to cheer his fainting soul with promise of immortality and justice, he might have been saved from his after fate; but there was no such man. He asked for the chaplain. North was fighting the Convict Department, seeking vengeance for Kirkland, and (victim of "clerks with the cold spurt of the pen") was pushed hither and thither, referred here, snubbed there, bowed out in another place. Rufus Dawes, half ashamed of himself for his request, waited a long morning, and then saw, respectfully ushered into his cell as his soul's physician--Meekin.

CHAPTER XIX. THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION.

"Well, my good man," said Meekin, soothingly, "so you wanted to see me."

"I asked for the chaplain," said Rufus Dawes, his anger with himself growing apace. "I am the chaplain," returned Meekin, with dignity, as who should say--"none of your brandy-drinking, pea-jacketed Norths, but a Respectable chaplain who is the friend of a Bishop!"