Lost Lenore Part 52

"Many of the wardens--as is usually the case--were greatly disliked by the convicts; and the latter, of course, took every opportunity of showing their hatred towards them.

"One morning, the gang refused to go to work--owing to a part of the usual allowance of food having been stopped from one of them, as they said, for no good reason. The overseer, in place of sending for the superintendent, attempted to force them to their tasks; and the result was a `row.'

"In the skrimmage that followed, one of the wardens--a man especially disliked by the convicts--was killed, while the overseer himself was carried senseless from the ground.

"The dead warden had been a sailor, and liked his `quid.' He was generally to be seen with his mouth full of tobacco, and this was the case at the time he was killed. I saw the quid taken from his mouth, scarce ten minutes after he had become a corpse, by one of the convicts, who the instant after transferred it to his own!

"The overseer, at the time he got knocked down, was smoking a pipe.

Scarce three minutes after, I saw the same pipe in the mouth of one of the men; and from its head was rolling a thick cloud of smoke!

"The fire in the pipe had not been allowed to expire; and the man who was smoking it was one of those afterwards hung for the murder of the warden!"

Volume Three, Chapter VI.

SQUATTERS' JUSTICE.

The old convict, as if reminded by the queer incidents he had related: that he himself stood in need of a smoke, here took out his pipe. After filling and lighting it, he resumed his narrative.

"Owing to refractory conduct on my part, and a dislike to crawling for the purpose of currying favour with overseers, I did not get a `ticket-of-leave' until five years after landing in the colony.

"I then received one--with permission to go as shepherd to a `squatter's station' up the country. For acting in this capacity, I was to receive ten pounds a year of wages.

"I found the shepherd's life a very weary one. The labour was not sufficient to keep me from thinking. During the whole day I had but little to do--except to indulge in regrets for the past, and despair of the future. Each day was so much like the one preceding it, that the time was not only monotonous, but terribly tiresome.

"Had I deserted my employment, I knew that I should be re-captured; and a new sentence pa.s.sed upon me. My only hope of obtaining full freedom-- at the end of my ten years' term--was by doing my duty as well as I could.

"One morning, after I had been about ten months in my shepherd's berth, as I was letting the sheep out of the enclosure, the squatter who owned the station, his overseer, and another man, came riding up.

"The sun was more than half an hour above the horizon; and as I ought to have had the sheep out upon the gra.s.s by sunrise, I was afraid the squatter would blame me for neglecting my duty. I was agreeably surprised at his not doing so.

"He bade me `good morning,' lit his pipe, took a look at the sheep; and then rode away along with the others.

"This treatment, instead of making me more neglectful, only rendered me more attentive to my duty; and every morning for three weeks after, the sheep were out of the yard by the first appearance of day-break.

"It was summer time, and the nights being very short, I could not always wake myself at such an early hour. The consequence was, that about three weeks before the expiration of the year, for which I was bound, my employer again caught me napping--nearly an hour after sun-up--with the sheep still in the penn.

"The squatter would listen to no excuse. I was taken direct before a magistrate--who was also a `squatter'--and charged with neglect of duty.

"The charge was of course proved; and I was dismissed from my employment.

"You may think that this was no punishment; but you will have a different opinion when you hear more. My year of apprenticeship not being quite up, my wages were forfeited; and I was told, that I ought to be thankful for the mercy shown me: in my not getting severely flogged, and sent back to the authorities, with a black mark against my name!

"I probably did my duty, as well as any man the squatter expected to get; and I had good reason to know, that I had been dismissed only to give my rascally employer the opportunity of withholding the balance of my wages, that would soon have been due to me!

"The only magistrates in the grazing country, were the squatters themselves; and they used to play into each other's hands in that fashion. There was no justice for convicts, who were treated but little better than slaves.

"Three months after leaving my situation, I came across an `old hand,'

who had been cheated out of his wages, by the very same squatter who had robbed me, and in precisely the same manner.

"This man proposed to me that we should take revenge--by burning down the squatter's wool-sheds.

"I refused to have anything to do with the undertaking; and from what the man then said, I supposed that he had relinquished the idea. That night, however, altogether unknown to me, he set fire to the sheds-- causing the squatter a loss of about three thousand pounds worth of property. The next day I was arrested and committed for trial--along with the old hand, who had urged me to aid him in obtaining his revenge.

"On the trial, circ.u.mstantial evidence was so strong against the incendiary, that he was found guilty. But as he continued to a.s.sert his innocence, of course he could say nothing that would clear me; and I was also found guilty--though the only evidence against me was, that I had been seen in his company eight hours before the crime was committed, and that I had been dismissed from service by the proprietor of the sheds!

"This was thought sufficient evidence upon which to sentence me to five years hard labour on the roads--the first two years of the term to be pa.s.sed in irons!

"I now despaired of ever seeing home again; and became, like many other convicts, so reckless as to have no thought for the future, and not to care whether my deeds were right or wrong.

"Had I acted as many of the very worst convicts are in the habit of doing--that is, fawning upon the overseers--I might have regained my liberty in two years and a half; but I never could crawl, or play the hypocrite; and all the less so, that I knew my sentence was unjust.

Neither could I allow the ill-usage of others to pa.s.s without complaint; and frequently did I complain. For doing this, I had to serve the full term of my sentence, while others, much worse than myself, by using a little deception, obtained their liberty on `tickets-of-leave.'

"After the term of my transportation had expired, I was no better than most of the `old hands.' If I have not committed all the crimes of which many of them are guilty, the reason is, that I had not the temptation: for, I acknowledge, that I have now completely lost the moral power to restrain me from crime.

"I happened to be free when gold was discovered in New South Wales; and, of course. I hastened to the place. After the discovery of the richer diggings here, I came overland to try them.

"In my gold seeking, I cannot complain of want of success; and I have not spent all that I have made.

"I am thinking of going back to England--although my visit to my native country cannot be a very pleasant one. I have, probably, some brothers and sisters still living; but, notwithstanding the strong affection I once had for them, they are nothing to me now. All human feeling has been flogged, starved, and tortured out of me.

"Sometimes, when I reflect on the degradations I have endured, I am ashamed to think of myself as a human being.

"When I look back to the innocent and happy days of my boyhood--of what I aspired to be--only an honest, respectable, hard-working man, when I contrast those days, and those humble hopes, with the scenes I have since pa.s.sed through, and my present condition--my back scarred with repeated floggings, and my limbs marked by the wear of iron fetters--I am not unwilling to die.

"I am glad to learn that a change has been made in the mode of punishing crime in the mother country. It has not been done too soon: for, bad as many of the convicts are--who are transported from the large cities of the United Kingdom--they cannot be otherwise than made worse, by the system followed here. A convict coming to this country meets with no a.s.sociations, precepts, or examples, that tend to reform him; but, on the contrary, every evil pa.s.sion and propensity is strengthened, if it has existed before; and imbibed, if it has not.

"Having told you a good deal of my past, I should like to be able to add something of my future; but cannot. Some men are very ingenious in inventing food for hope: I am not. I don't know for what I am living: for every good and earnest motive seems to have been stifled within me.

Hope, love, despair, revenge, and all the other mental powers that move man to action, are dead within my heart. I having nothing more to tell you of myself; and probably never shall have."

So ended the sad story of the convict.

Volume Three, Chapter VII.

RAFFLING AWAY A WIFE.

Our claim on the Avoca "lead" turned out to be worth working; and we had five or six weeks of hard toil before us. My mate continued temperate and industrious; and we got along together without any misunderstanding.

One day we were informed by a man pa.s.sing our tent, that a very interesting affair was to come off that evening--at a certain grog-shop not far from where we lived.

My partner was strongly advised to be there: as there would be a spectacle worth witnessing.

"Shall you go?" I asked, after the man had gone.

"No--not alone," replied he, "the place has a bad name; and I know that one of the parties concerned in what is to take place is a bad bird.

You go along with me, and you'll see some amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Have you any idea what it's to be?" I inquired.