Rídan The Devil And Other Stories, Page 2

  CHAPTER I

  The house in which I lived from my birth till I was twelve years of agestood on the green-grassed slopes of a treeless bluff which overlookedthe blue waters of the sunlit Pacific. Except for a cluster of five orsix little weatherboard cottages perched on the verge of the headland,half a mile away, and occupied by the crew of the Government pilot boat,there were no other dwellings near, for the 'town,' as it was called,lay out of sight, on the low, flat banks of a tidal river, whose upperwaters were the haunt and breeding places of the black swan, the wildduck and the pelican.

  My father was the principal civil official in the place, which wascalled Bar Harbour, one of the smaller penal settlements in Australia,founded for what were called 'the better class' of convicts, many ofwhom, having received their emancipation papers, had settled in thevicinity, and had become prosperous and, in a measure, respectedsettlers, though my father, who had a somewhat bitter tongue, said thatno ex-convict could ever be respected in the colony until he had lentmoney to one or other of the many retired military or civil officerswho held large Crown grants of land in the district and worked them withconvict labour; for, while numbers of the emancipists throve and becamealmost wealthy, despite the many cruel and harassing restrictionsimposed upon them by the unwritten laws of society (which yetacademically held them to be purged of their offences), the grandmilitary gentlemen and their huge estates generally went to ruin--mostlythrough their own improvidence, though such misfortunes, our minister,the Reverend Mr Sampson, said, in the sermons he preached inour hideous, red-brick church, were caused by an 'inscrutableProvidence'--their dwellings and store houses were burnt, their cattleand sheep disappeared, and their 'assigned' labourers took to the bush,and either perished of starvation or became bushrangers and went to thegallows in due course.

  My mother, who was a gentle, tender-hearted woman, and seemed to liveand move and have her being only for the purpose of making happy thosearound her, was, being English-born (she was of a Devonshire family),a constant church-goer, not for the sake of appearances, for herintelligence was too great for her to be bound by such a shallow reason,but because she was a simple, good and pure-minded woman, and sought byher example to make a protest against the scandalous and degraded livesled by many of the soldier officers and officials with whom she and herchildren were brought in almost daily contact, for my father, beingan all too generous man, kept open house. But although she was alwayssweet-tempered and sometimes merry with the hard-drinking old Peninsularveterans, and the noisy and swaggering subalterns of the ill-famed 102ndRegiment (or New South Wales Corps), she always shuddered and lookedpale and ill at ease when she saw among my father's guests the coarse,stern face of the minister, and her dislike of the clergyman was sharedby all we children, especially by my elder brother Harry (then sixteenyears of age), who called him 'the flogging parson' and the 'ReverendDiabolical Howl.' This latter nickname stuck, and greatly tickled MajorTrenton, who repeated it to the other officers, and one day young MrMoore of the 102nd, who was clever at such things, made a sketch ofthe cleric as he appeared when preaching, which set them all a-laughingimmoderately.

  'God alive!' cried old Major Trenton, holding the picture in his lefthand, and bringing down his right upon the table with a thump that setall the glasses jingling, ''tis a perfect likeness of him, and yet,Moore, if ye had but given him a judge's wig and robes instead of acassock, he would be the double of damned old hanging Norbury up there,'pointing to the picture of an Irish judge which hung on the wall.'Come,' he added, 'Mrs Egerton must see this. I know our hostess lovesthe gentle parson.'

  So three or four of them, still laughing boisterously, left the table tolook for my mother, whom they found sitting on the latticed-in verandah,which on hot summer days was used as a drawing-room. She, too, laughedheartily at the sketch, and said 'twas wonderfully drawn, and thenmy brother Harry asked Mr Moore to give it to him. This the younglieutenant did, though my mother begged him to destroy it, lest MrSampson should hear of the matter and take offence. But my brotherpromised her not to let it go out of his keeping, and there the thingended--so we thought.

  Yet, in some way, my mother's convict and free servants came to hear ofthe picture--they had already bandied about the parson's nickname--andevery one of them, on some cunning excuse, had come to my brother's roomand laughed at the drawing; and very often when they saw the clergymanriding past the house, attended by his convict orderly, they would say,with an added curse, 'There goes "Diabolical Howl,'" for they all hatedthe man, because, being a magistrate as well as a minister, he hadsentenced many a prisoner to a dreadful flogging and had watched itbeing administered.

  But perhaps it was not altogether on account of the floggings in whichhe so believed for which he was so detested--for floggings were commonenough for even small breaches of the regulations of the System--butfor the spiritual admonition with which he dosed them afterwards, whiletheir backs were still black and bloody from the cat. Once, when an oldconvict named Callaghan was detected stealing some sugar belonging toone of the pilot boat's crew, my mother went to Dr Parsons, who, withthe Reverend Mr Sampson, was to hear the charge against Callaghan on thefollowing morning, and begged him not to have the man flogged; and TomKing, the man from whom the sugar was stolen, went with her and joinedhis pleadings to hers.

  'Now, come, doctor,' said my mother, placing her hand on the oldofficer's arm and smiling into his face, 'you _must_ grant me thisfavour. The man is far too old to be flogged. And then he was a soldierhimself once--he was a drummer boy, so he once told me, in the 4thBuffs.'

  'The most rascally regiment in the service, madam. Every one of themdeserved hanging. But,' and here his tone changed from good-humouredbanter into sincerity, 'I honour you, Mrs Egerton, for your humanity.The man is over sixty, and I promise you that he shall not be flogged.Why, he is scarce recovered yet from the punishment inflicted on him forstealing Major Innes's goose. But yet he is a terrible old rascal.'

  'Never mind that,' said my mother, laughing. 'Major Innes should keephis geese from straying about at night-time. And then, doctor, youmust remember that poor Callaghan said that he mistook the bird for apelican--it being dark when he killed it.'

  'Ha, ha,' laughed the doctor, 'and no doubt Mr Patrick Callaghan onlydiscovered his mistake when he was cooking his pelican, and noticed itsremarkably short bill.'

  My mother left, well pleased, but on the following morning, while wewere at our mid-day meal, she was much distressed to hear that oldCallaghan had received fifty lashes after all--the good doctor had beenthrown from his horse and so much hurt that he was unable to attend thecourt, and another magistrate--a creature of Mr Sampson's--had taken hisplace. The news was brought to us by Thomas King, and my mother's paleface flushed with anger as, bidding King to go into the kitchen and getsome dinner, she turned to my father (who took but little heed of such asimple thing as the flogging of a convict), and said hotly,--

  ''Tis shameful that such cruelty can be perpetrated! I shall write tothe Governor himself--he is a just and humane man--oh, it is wicked,wicked,' and then she covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud.

  My father was silent. He detested the parson most heartily, but was toocautious a man, in regard to his own interest, to give open expressionto his opinions, so beyond muttering something to my brother Harry aboutThomas King having no business to distress her, he was about to risefrom the table, when a servant announced that the Reverend Mr Sampsonwished to see him.

  The mention of the clergyman's name seemed to transform my mother intoanother woman. Quickly, but gently, putting aside my sister Frances,whose loving arms were clasped around her waist, she rose, and fireflashed in her eyes as she said to the servant,--

  'Denham, tell Mr Sampson that I desire to speak with him as soon as hehas finished his business with Mr Egerton.'

  My father went out to the drawing-room, where the clergyman awaited him,and for the next ten minutes or so my mother walked quickly to and froin the dining-room, bidding us
remain seated, and in a harsh, unnaturaltone to one so sweet and gentle, she told the servants who waited towithdraw.

  'Mr Sampson is at your service, madam,' said Denham, opening the door.

  'Show him in here,' said my mother, sharply, and her always pale facegrew paler still.

  The clergyman entered, and extended his fat, white hand to her; she drewback and bowed coldly.

  'I do not desire to shake hands with you, sir.'

  Mr Sampson's red face flushed purple.

  'I do not understand you, madam. Is this a jest--or do you forget who Iam?'

  'I shall try to make you understand me, Mr Sampson, in as few wordsas possible. I do not jest, and I do not forget who you are. I have arequest to make.'

  'Indeed! I feel honoured, madam,' and the corners of the clergyman'sthick lips turned contemptuously down--'and that is--?'

  'That you will cease your visits to this house. It would be painfulindeed to me to receive you as a guest from this time forth, for thisvery day it is my intention to write to the Governor and acquainthim with the shocking act of cruelty committed this morning--'twas ashameful, cruel deed to flog an old man so cruelly.'

  Mr Sampson's face was now livid with the rage he could not suppress.

  'Beware, madam, of what you say or do. 'Tis a pretty example you setyour children to thus insult a clergyman.'

  My mother's answer cut like a whip-lash. 'A clergyman such as you,Mr Sampson, can inspire naught in their childish minds but fear andabhorrence,' and then she pulled the bell cord so violently that notonly Denham but my father entered as well.

  'Show Mr Sampson out,' she said in accents of mingled anger andscorn, and then turning to the window nearest, she seemed to be gazingunconcernedly upon the blue expanse of ocean before her; but her littlehands were clasped tightly together, and her whole frame trembled withexcitement.

  As soon as the clergyman had mounted his horse and ridden off, my fatherreturned to the dining-room.

  'You have made a bitter enemy of a man who can do me much harm,' hebegan; but something in my mother's face made him cease from furtherreproaches, and he added lightly, that he hoped 'twould soon blow over.

  'Charles,' said my mother, who was now herself again, 'it must _not_blow over. The Governor shall know of this man's doings. And never againshall I or my children enter the church when he preaches. To-night,I suppose, he will visit that wretched old man--the victim of hisbrutality--and administer "spiritual admonition." Come, children, let usgo to the beach and forget that that dreadful man has been here.'

  It was, I think, this practice of 'administering admonition' to convictsafter he had had them sentenced to a severe flogging that first gave mymother such an utter abhorrence of the man, together with his habit ofconfining his sermons to the prisoners to the one subject--their owncriminal natures and the terrors of hell-fire everlasting. Then, too,his voice was appalling to hear, for he had a way of suddenly droppinghis harsh, metallic tones, and raising his voice to a howl, like to thatof a hungry dingo.{*}

  * The native dog of Australia, whose long, accentuated howl is most distressing to hear.

  Often did I, when sitting in our great square pew in that dreadful,horrible church, press close to my mother's side and bury my face in herdress, as he lashed himself into a fury and called down the vengeance ofa wrathful God upon the rows of silent, wretched beings clad in yellow,who were seated on long stools in the back of the church, guarded bysoldiers, who, with loaded muskets, were stationed in the galleryabove. Some of the convicts, it was said, had sworn to murder him if anopportunity served, and this no doubt made him the more merciless andvindictive to any one of them who was so unfortunate as to be chargedbefore him in his capacity of magistrate. By the Regulations he couldnot sit alone to deal out punishment, and sometimes had difficultyin finding a colleague, especially among the military men, who nearlyalways protested against his fondness for the cat; but there were alwaysto be found, in the end, magistrates who would do anything to pleasehim, for it was known that he had great influence with the HomeGovernment, and was not chary of using it on behalf of those whotruckled to him, if he so inclined; and, indeed, both Major Trenton andDr Parsons said that he was a man with many good points, and could be,to those who pleased him, a good friend, as well as a bitter enemy tothose who in any way crossed him. But they asserted that he should neverhave been appointed a magistrate in a colony where the penal laws gavesuch latitude to his violent temper and arbitrary disposition.

  Early one morning in December, and three months after the drawing ofthe picture by Lieutenant Moore, my two brothers and myself set off ona fishing excursion to a tidal lagoon whose waters debouched into thePacific, about fifteen miles southward from the little township. Behindus followed a young man named Walter Trenfield, who was one of myfather's assigned servants, and an aboriginal named 'King Billy';these two carried our provisions, cooking utensils and blankets, for weintended to camp out for two or three days.

  A half-an-hour's walk over the slopes of the bluff brought us to thefringe of the dense coastal forest, through which our track lay foranother two or three miles before we again came to open country. Therewas, however, a very good road, made by convict labour, through thescrub as far as it went; it ran almost along the very verge of thesteep-to coast, and as we tramped over the rich red soil we had thebright blue sea beneath us on our left, and the dark and almost silentbush on our right. I say 'almost,' for although in these moist andsunless seaboard tracts of what we Australian-born people call bush, andEnglish people would call wood or forest, there was no sound of humanlife, there was yet always to be heard the _thump, thump_ of thefrightened scrub wallaby, and now and again the harsh, shrieking note ofthe great white cockatoo, or the quick rush of a long-tailed iguana overthe thick bed of leaves, as the timid reptile fled to the nearest tree,up whose rugged bole it crawled for security.

  We had come some three or four miles upon our way, when we suddenlyemerged from the darkness and stillness of the scrub out into the lightof day and the bright sunshine, and heard the low murmur of the surfbeating upon the rocks below. Here we sat down to rest awhile and feastour boyish eyes on the beauties of sea and shore and sky around us.A few hundred yards away from where we sat was a round, verdured conecalled 'Little Nobby'; it rose steep-to from the sea to a height ofabout three hundred feet, and formed a very striking and distinctlandmark upon that part of the coast--bold and rugged as it was--fora stretch of three score miles. Presently, as we lay upon the grass,looking out upon the sea, Walter Trenfield and the aboriginal joined us,and whilst they made a fire to boil a billy of tea, my brother Harry,hearing the call of a wonga pigeon, picked up his gun and went into thescrub to shoot it.