Rídan The Devil And Other Stories, Page 3

  CHAPTER II

  I must now relate something of the previous history of this youngman Trenfield. He was a native of Bideford, in Devon--my mother'scounty--and had been a sailor. Some years before, he, with another youngman named Thomas May, had been concerned in a mutiny on board a Londonwhale-ship, the _Jason_, and both men were sentenced to fourteen years'penal servitude, it being believed, though not proven, that eitherTrenfield or May had killed one of the officers with a blow of the fist.They were, with six of their shipmates, tried at the Old Bailey, andalthough a Quaker gentleman, a Mr Robert Bent, who had visited them inprison, gave a lawyer fifty guineas to defend them, the judge said thatalthough the death of the officer could not be sheeted home to either ofthem, there was no doubt of their taking part in the mutiny--with whichoffence they were charged. After spending three months in one of theconvict hulks they were sent out to Sydney in the _Breckenbridge_transport. But before they sailed they were several times visited by MrBent, who told them that he would always bear them in mind, and shouldendeavour to have their sentences reduced if he heard good word of theirfuture conduct from his agent in Sydney; this Mr Bent was the owner ofseveral of the Government transports, which, after discharging theircargo of convicts, would sail upon a whaling cruise to the South Seas.More than this, he said that he would give them berths on one of hisvessels as soon as they regained their freedom, and that he had writtento his agent to that effect.

  It so happened that this agent, a Mr Thomas Campbell, was a friend of myfather's, who also knew Mr Bent, and so when the _Breckenbridge_ arrivedat Sydney he succeeded in having Trenfield assigned to him, and ThomasMay to a contractor who was building a bridge for the Government over ariver in the vicinity of Bar Harbour.

  The two young seamen were very much attached to each other, and theircheerful dispositions, good conduct and unceasing industry led to theirbeing granted many privileges. Both my father and my mother had takena strong liking to Trenfield; and so, too, had Ruth Kenna, a youngfree female servant of ours. As for we boys, we simply worshipped bothTrenfield and May as heroes who had sailed in the far South Seas andharpooned and killed the mighty sperm whale, and had fought with thewild and naked savages of the Pacific Isles.

  Ruth Kenna was the daughter of a small farmer in the district, who hadbeen emancipated by the good Governor. He was a widower, and a rough,taciturn man, but passionately devoted to Ruth, who was his only child.He had been transported for having taken part in the disastrous Irishrebellion of '98,' and his young wife had followed him to share hisexile. The terrors and hardships of the long voyage out killed her, forshe died almost as soon as she landed, without seeing her husband,and leaving her infant child to the kindly care of the officers of thedetachment of the regiment which had come out in the same ship. By themthe infant girl had been placed in the charge of a respectable femaleconvict, who, at my mother's expense, had kept her till she was tenyears of age. Then she came to us as a servant, and had remained eversince.

  Very often my father--though he pretended, as became his officialposition in a Crown Colony, to have a great dislike to Irish RomanCatholics--would allow we boys to go to Patrick Kenna's farm to shootnative bears and opossums, which were very plentiful thereabout, forthe land was very thickly timbered with blue gum, tallow-wood and nativeapple. The house itself stood on the margin of a small tidal creek,whose shallow waters teemed with fish of all descriptions, and in thewinter Kenna would catch great numbers of whiting, bream and sea mullet,which he salted and dried and sold to the settlers who lived inland.He lived quite alone, except from Saturday morning till Sunday morning,when Ruth stayed with him and straightened up the rough house. SometimesRuth would persuade my mother to let my brother Will and myself staywith them for the night, and dearly did we love going; for her father,though a silent, cold-mannered man to most people, was always differentto any one of us Egertons, and never even grumbled when we got intomischief, though he pretended to be very angry. Once, indeed, he hadgood cause to be--as I shall relate.

  One Saturday evening, after we had finished our supper, Patrick Kennafound that he had run out of tobacco, and said that if we were notafraid of being left by ourselves for a few hours he would walk into BarHarbour and buy some before the store closed, returning before midnight.Of course we did not mind, and in a few minutes Ruth's father set out,accompanied by 'King Billy' and one or two other black-fellows whowere in hopes of selling some wild honey for a bottle or two of rum. Wewatched them disappear into the darkness of the forest, and then, as thenight was suitable, my brother Will proposed that we should all go downto the creek and fish for black bream.

  'The tide is coming in, Ruth,' he said gleefully, 'and we'll have finesport. I'll go on first and light a fire on the bank.'

  Presently, as Ruth and I were getting ready our lines, he dashed intothe house again, panting with excitement.

  'Never mind the lines. Oh, I have glorious news! The salmon are comingin, in swarms, and the water is alive with them! Ruth, let us get thenet and put it right across the creek as soon as it is slack water.'Twill be glorious.'

  Now, we knew that the sea salmon had been seen out at sea a few daysbefore, but it was yet thought to be too soon for their vast drovesto enter the rivers and lagoons. But Will was quite right, for when wedragged down the heavy net we found that the water, which half an hourbefore, though under the light of myriad stars, had been black andsilent, was now a living sheet of phosphorescent light, caused by thepassage up the creek of countless thousands of agitated fish, driven inby hundreds of porpoises and savage, grey ocean-haunting sharks, whosemurderous forms we could see darting to and fro just outside the shallowbar, charging into and devouring the helpless, compact masses of salmon,whose very numbers prevented them from escaping; for serried legionafter legion from the sea swam swiftly in to the narrow passage andpressed upon those which were seeking to force their way up to theshallow, muddy waters five miles beyond--where alone lay safety from thetigers of the sea.

  Ruth Kenna, as wild with excitement as my brother and myself, took upone pole of the net and sprang into the water, leaving Will and I to payout on our side. She was a tall, strong girl, but what with the force ofthe inward current and the mad press of the terrified salmon, she couldbarely reach the sand-spit on the other shore, though the passage wasnot fifty feet across. But she managed to struggle ashore and secure herend of the net by jamming the pole between some logs of driftwood whichlay upon the sand. Then, with a loud, merry laugh, she bade me run upto the house and bring her a petticoat and bodice, and leaping into thewater she swam across again and helped Will to properly secure his endof the net to the bole of a tea tree.

  Old as I am now, the memory of that happy, happy night lives with meyet. By the light of a huge fire of logs we sat and watched the net,which, as the tide ebbed, curved outward to the sea, though the salmonwithout still tried to force a passage into the creek, and the raveningsharks outside the deep water of the bar rushed through and throughtheir close-packed ranks and gorged themselves till they rolled about,with distended bellies, as if they were water-logged baulks of timber.

  As we sat by the fire, waiting for the tide to run out, we heard thedogs barking and knew that Patrick Kenna had returned. Presently weheard him walking down towards us, and at the same moment Ruth utteredan exclamation of terror and pointed to the water.

  'Oh, look! look! There are a lot of sharks inside, coming down thecreek. Quick! let this end of the net go, or they will be caught in itand tear it to pieces!'

  Her father was alive to the danger. Springing before us, he cut the endof the line fastened to the tea-tree; but he was too late, for beforethe net had tailed out to the current four or five sharks had dashedinto it and entangled themselves in its meshes, and in ten minutes thenet was utterly ruined, for although the sharks could not use theirteeth, the great weight of their gorged bodies and their furiousstruggles soon tore the bight of it to shreds.

  Kenna watched the destruction of the net in silence. As he stood in
thelight of the fire, his dark, rugged face showed no sign of the angerthat must have burned within him at our thoughtless conduct.

  'Ye might have waited till I was back, Ruth,' he said quietly; 'there'sas good a net as was ever made gone to ruin. And sure 'twas a mad thingfor ye to do when th' ravening sharks were so plentiful.'

  Of course my father and mother were very angry with us, and sent Kennafive pounds to partly pay for the damage done. He sent it back by Ruth,and said that he would be a poor creature to take it, for the mishap wascaused by Ruth's folly, and that we boys were in no way to blame.

  * * * * *

  Almost every alternate evening Tom May would come to our house, and goto Walter Trenfield's quarters, which were in a large airy loft overour stable, and the two young men would dress and sew the skins ofthe wallabies and 'possums which my brothers had shot. My mother neverobjected to us staying with them till about ten o'clock, and Ruth, too,often came and made coffee for us all. Both May and Trenfield alwaysbehaved well and soberly, and although they had been whale-ship sailorsthey were always very careful in their language when we were with them.Some time before my mother's angry interview with Mr Sampson she hadmentioned, in his hearing, to Major Trenton's wife, that her boys weregreatly attached to the two young men, whose stories of their formersea life were very exciting, and so forth, whereupon the clergyman saidsourly that both were dangerous villains who should not be trusted, andshe would do well to prevent the further intercourse of her childrenwith such rascals.

  My mother bowed stiffly to him, and said gently that she thought he wasmistaken greatly in their characters; also she was well able to lookafter her children's morals; but Mrs Trenton, a sharp-tongued oldIrishwoman, who hated the parson and loved my mother, spoke out prettyplainly.

  'No one but a clergyman would make such a rude speech to a lady, sir.A man who _called_ himself a gentleman would be made to account for hislack of manners.'

  One Saturday afternoon, as Walter Trenfield and Ruth were driving thecows down to the creek to drink, and Will and I were idling about on theseaward hill, we saw Patrick Kenna ride up to the house, dismount andknock. He only remained indoors a few minutes, and presently we saw himgalloping towards Trenfield and Ruth, with whom he stayed talking foreven a still shorter time; then, without taking any notice of us--whichwas most unusual for him--he put spurs to his horse and rode straightfor the scrub, towards his home.

  'There is something the matter,' said Will. 'See, there is Walterrunning up to the house again. Come, let us see what it is.'

  We ran home, and entering by the garden gate saw that Walter was talkingto my mother on the back verandah. She seemed very troubled and almoston the verge of crying, and we soon heard the news, which was badenough. Thomas May had been given a hundred lashes and had taken to thebush.

  It appeared that May, whom we had not seen for one or two weeks, hadbeen working under an overseer named Cross, at a place about ten milesfrom the town. (This man Cross was of a notoriously savage disposition,and had himself been a convict in Van Diemen's Land, but had received apardon for having shot and killed a bushranger there.)

  May, with the rest of his gang, was felling timber, when a heavy chipflew from the tallow-wood tree upon which he was working, and struckthe overseer in the face. Cross at once flew into a violent passion, andwith much foul language accused poor May of having thrown the chip athim. This the young fellow warmly denied, whereupon Cross, taking hispistol out of his belt, struck the sailor on the mouth with the butt. Inan instant May returned the blow by knocking the overseer down, and wasthen seized by two of his fellow-convicts. He was ironed and taken intotown, and on the following morning was brought before Mr Sampson andanother magistrate. It was no use of his pleading provocation, hereceived his flogging within a few hours. Towards daylight he crept outof his hut, broke into his master's storeroom, and took a musket, powderand ball, and as much food as he could carry, telling a fellow-prisonerthat he would perish in the bush rather than be taken alive.

  On the fifth night after his escape, and whilst the constables werescouring the country in search of him, he came to Patrick Kenna's house.The night was very dark and the rain descending in torrents; so, therebeing no fear of intruders, Kenna barred his door and made the poorfellow comfortable by giving him a change of clothes, a good meal andsome tobacco to smoke. Tom inquired very eagerly after Walter, and senthim a long message, and then told Kenna some startling news.

  Two days after he had absconded, and when he was quite thirty milesdistant from Bar Harbour, he saw smoke arising from a dense scrub.Creeping along on his hands and knees he saw two men--escaped convictslike himself--engaged in skinning a wallaby. He at once made himselfknown to them and was welcomed. After a meal from the wallaby, the twomen asked him if he would join them in a plan they had of getting awayfrom the country; he was just the man, they said, being a sailor, whocould bring the attempt to a successful issue. Then they told him that,many weeks previously, they had found a whale-boat lying capsized on thebeach some miles away, and that she was perfectly sound. By great labourthey had succeeded in dragging her up into the margin of the scrub onthe beach, where they had turned her over and covered her carefully withdead branches. A further search along the beach had resulted in theirfinding an oar and one of the line tubs,{*} but that was all.

  * English whale-ship boats generally used two line tub's-- American only one. No doubt this boat was lost from an English whaler, the _Britannia_, then on the coast.

  Of course poor Tom May was greatly taken with this, and said that hewould join them, and that he thought Walter Trenfield would come aswell. He went with the men to look at the boat, and found her just asthey had said--almost new and quite watertight. He agreed to return towithin a safe distance of Bar Harbour, and, through Patrick Kenna, letTrenfield know of the discovery of the boat and get him to help them tofit her out properly. Oars and a mast they could easily make, had theythe tools, and a sail could also be obtained through either Ruth or herfather, who could get them enough coarse calico for the purpose.

  Kenna promised to help, although he told Tom he should try to dissuadeWalter from joining in the enterprise. Just before daylight May bidKenna good-bye, as he was anxious to return to the other two convictsand tell them that they had friends who would help them. Before heleft, however, he arranged with Kenna that the latter should bring therequired articles one by one--especially two breakers of water--to thefoot of Little Nobby's and hide them in the scrub at the spot agreedupon. Then, when all was ready and a dark night favoured, May and theother two men were to launch the boat and make their way with all speeddown the coast to Little Nobby's--nearly twenty miles distant from wherethe boat was hidden--take on board the water and provisions and put tosea; it being May's intention, whether Trenfield joined him or not, tomake to the northward for Timor in the East Indies. Then, with a warmhand-grasp, they parted; and never again was Thomas May seen alive.

  On the following morning Kenna contrived to see Walter and tell him thathis former shipmate was safe, and what was afoot. Of course Walter wasoverjoyed to learn that he (Tom) had such a means of escape offering,and at once announced his intention of falling in with the enterprise;but Patrick Kenna spoke very strongly against his doing so, and Ruth,too, came to her father's aid. It was, they said, foolish of him to linkhimself with these desperate men, every one of whom had a price upon hishead, whereas he, Walter, stood in good chance of receiving his pardonat any moment. Why should he sacrifice himself and break Ruth's heartfor the sake of his friend?

  So, finally, overcome by their arguments, he yielded, saying, however,that he felt he was acting a coward's part, and begged of Kenna toarrange a farewell meeting between Tom and himself. This, wisely enough,Kenna refused to do, but said he would do anything else to make theirseparation easier. So Trenfield wrote his old comrade a letter offarewell, and, taking a canvas bag, he filled it with all sorts ofarticles likely to be useful on a long boat voyage. Ke
nna took the bag,together with material for a sail, away with him at night and placed itin the spot agreed upon with May. He had already given Tom a tomahawkand an adze with which to make some oars and a mast.

  On the fourth night after his visit to Kenna's house, Tom May again camethrough the bush, and went to Little Nobby's, for when Ruth's fatherwent to the hiding-place in the morning with a breaker of water and alarge bundle of dried fish, he found that the bag and the sail-clothwere gone, and on a small piece of white driftwood which lay on theground these words were written in charcoal:--

  '_Sunday, Midnight?_'

  By this Kenna knew that the three men meant to come for the provisionsand water at the time mentioned. It was then Friday, and he had muchto do to get all in readiness; for Little Nobby's was quite six milesdistant from his house, and he could only make his journeys to and frowith great secrecy, for the constables were still searching the coastalregion for May. But, aided by Billy, the aboriginal, he managed to haveeverything in readiness early on Sunday night. He afterwards told mymother that besides the two breakers of water, each holding ten gallons,he had provided four gallons of rum, a hundredweight each of saltedmeat and dried fish, tobacco and pipes, fishing tackle, two muskets, andplenty of powder and bullets. The place selected for the landing ofthe boat was an excellent one; for on one side of Little Nobby's was alittle, narrow bay running in between high clifis of black trap rock,which broke the force of the ocean swell entirely. Then, too, the placewas very lonely and seldom visited, for the main road lay nearly twomiles back beyond the clifis.

  Whether my mother actually knew of all that was going on I do not know;but I do know that about this time she seemed paler than ever, and wefrequently saw her and Ruth talking earnestly together; and Ruth andWalter, too, were always whispering to each other.

  Sunday came, and as my mother, since her quarrel with the Reverend MrSampson over the flogging of old Callaghan, did not now go to church,we all, except my father, who was still on friendly terms with theclergyman, remained at home, my mother herself conducting a shortservice in the dining-room, at which all the servants, free and bond,attended. In the afternoon Major Trenton, Captain Crozier and some othersoldier officers rode up, as was customary with them on Sundays, andRuth and Denham brought them brandy and water on the front verandah,where they awaited my mother and sisters.

  'Harry, you young rascal,' said Major Trenton, presently to my eldestbrother, 'what did you do with Mr Moore's picture of the parson, eh?'

  'It was stolen from me, sir,' he answered, laughing, 'about three orfour months ago.'

  'Indeed,' said the major; 'then the thief has principles, and willdoubtless send it back to you, for he has made a score of copies ofit, and they are all over the district. Why, the rascal, whoever he is,nailed one to the door of the Commissariat Store not long ago, and thefirst person to see it was Mr Sampson himself. He is mightily wrothabout it, I can tell ye, and somehow suspects that the picture came fromsomeone in this house, and told your father that these copies were givenabout by your man Trenfield. So just ye give a hint to the fellow, andtell him that if the parson gets a chance to tickle his back, faithhe'll do it.'

  'I am sure, sir, that Walter did not take the picture,' said my brother.'It was nailed up over my bed and one day I missed it. I thought thatmy mother had destroyed or taken it away. But she had not, and I cannotaccount for its disappearance.'

  Now this was hardly true, for, from something they had heard from Ruth,both Harry and my sister Frances thought that Thomas May had taken awaythe caricature, intending to replace it.

  'Well, never mind, my lad,' said Major Trenton, laughing, ''tis amonstrous fine joke, anyway, and, faith, I sent one of the copies to theGovernor himself. 'Twill amuse him hugely.'

  Presently my mother and my two sisters joined the group on the verandah,and as they were all talking and laughing together, Ruth Kenna came tomy mother and said that her father had just come with a basket of freshfish and would like to see her for a minute. I, being the youngest boyof the family, and over-fond--so my brothers said--of hanging onto mammy's apron-strings, as well as being anxious to see the fish,followed her out on to the back verandah, where black-browed, dark-facedPatrick Kenna awaited her.

  ''Tis a fine dark night coming on, ma'am,' he said in a low voice. 'Thewind is north-east and 'twill hould well till daylight. Then 'twill comeaway from the south-east, sure enough. They should be there long beforemidnight and out of sight of land before the dawn.'

  'Yes, yes, Patrick,' said my mother, hurriedly. 'I shall pray to-nightto God for those in peril on the sea; and to forgive us for any wrong wemay have done in this matter.'

  'No harm can iver come to any wan in this house,' said the man,earnestly, raising her hand to his lips, 'for the blessin' av God an'the Holy Virgin is upon it.'

  My mother pressed his hand. 'Good-bye, Patrick. I do hope all may gowell;' and with this she went away.

  Kenna raised his hat and turned to go, when Walter Trenfield came to thefoot of the verandah steps and stopped him.

  'Let me come with you,' he said, 'and bid Tom good-bye.'

  'No,' answered Kenna, roughly, 'neither you nor I nor any wan else mustgo near Nobby's to-night; matthers are goin' well enough, an' no follyof yours shall bring desthruction upon them. As it is, the constablessuspect me, and are now watching my house.'

  Then, mounting his horse again, he rode leisurely away over the brow ofthe hill towards the scrub, through which his road lay.

  Both Walter and Ruth knew that unless the night was very clear there wasno chance of even the lookout man on the pilot station seeing a smallboat passing along to the southward; but nevertheless they went up tothe pilot station about ten o'clock, when they thought that Tom Mayand his companions would be passing Bar Harbour on their way to LittleNobby's. They stayed on the headland for nearly an hour, talking to TomKing and the look-out man, and then came home, feeling satisfied thatif the three men had succeeded in launching the boat safely, they hadpassed Bar Harbour about eleven o'clock and would reach Nobby's at orbefore midnight.

  Soon after breakfast next morning, Patrick Kenna, under pretence ofspeaking to my mother about a strayed heifer of ours, came into thekitchen, and told Ruth that all was well; he had been to Little Nobby'sat daylight and found that everything was gone and the boat was nowhereto be discerned.

  For quite another two or three weeks after this the constables pursuedtheir search after Thomas May, much to the amusement of Ruth andPatrick Kenna, especially as the latter, with 'King Billy' and anotheraboriginal, were officially employed by my father at ten shillings _perdiem_ to discover the absconder--Billy, who seemed to be most anxiousto get the reward of five pounds, leading the constables all over thecountry and eating more than three men's rations daily. At last thechase was abandoned, and my father wrote officially to Sydney and saidthat 'Thomas May, No. 3614, _Breckenbridge_,' was supposed to haveeither died of starvation in the bush or have been killed by thenatives. My mother, of course, thought she knew better.

  And so the matter was forgotten by everyone but us who had known andcared for the good-natured, high-spirited and warm-hearted young sailor;and as the months went by, Walter Trenfield and my mother both lookedforward to receiving a letter from Tom May, telling them that he and hiscompanions had reached some port in the Dutch East Indies in safety. Fornot only was the boat well found, but they had plenty of provisions,and Tom May was a thorough seaman; and besides that, my mother had oftentold us the story of the convict William Bryant, who had escaped fromSydney Harbour in Governor Phillip's time, and in an open boat, withfour other men and his wife and two infant children, succeeded inreaching Timor, after a voyage of three thousand miles.{*}

  * Publisher's Note.--The strange but true story of the Bryants is told in a volume entitled _A First Fleet Family_. (Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1896.)

  But no letter came until two long years had passed.

  Ruth Kenna, at the ti
me of my story, though not yet seventeen years ofage, was a tall, powerful girl, and was known as the best horsewoman inall the country around. She was a happy, good-natured sort of a wench,with a heart filled with sunshine and love and truth and honesty; thoughMr Sampson once told my father that she was a 'dangerous Papist,' andthe child of a convicted rebel, and as such should have no place ina Protestant family. This so angered my mother that she wrote theclergyman a very sharp letter and said she would take it as a favour ifhe would not interfere with her servants. This was a great thing for herto do; and my father said 'twas most indiscreet. But mother only smiledand said that although she was sorry Ruth was a Papist, she (Ruth) was agood, honest girl, and that her father was a good, honest man, and thatif Mr Sampson was wise he would not come near Ruth, who, being a freewoman, had said she would throw him down the garden well. At this timeRuth was looking forward to the day of her marriage with Trenfield, who,through my father's influence with the Governor, was expecting to bepardoned.

  But now I am forging ahead too fast, and must go back to where we boysand Walter Trenfield were lying on the grassy bluff overlooking LittleNobby's awaiting the return of my brother Harry.