Book of the Bush — 37 - A Happy Convict

A HAPPY CONVICT.

"Thrice did I receive forty stripes, save one."

It was court day at Palmerston, and there was an unusual amount of business that morning.

A constable brought in a prisoner, and charged him with being a vagrant--having no lawful visible means of support.

I entered the charge in the cause list, "Police v. John Smithers, vagrancy," and then looked at the vagrant.

He was growing aged, was dressed in old clothes, faded, dirty, and ill-fitting; he had not been measured for them.

His face was very dark, and his hair and beard were long and rough, showing that he had not been in gaol lately.

His eyes wandered about the court in a helpless and vacant manner.

Two boys about eight or nine years old entered the court, and, with colonial presumption, sat in the jury box.

There were no other spectators, so I left them there to represent the public.

They stared at the prisoner, whispered to each other, and smiled.

The prisoner could not see anything to laugh at, and frowned at them.

Then the magistrate came in, rubbing one of his hands over the other, glanced at the prisoner as he passed, and withered him with a look of virtuous severity.

He was our Black Wednesday magistrate, and was death on criminals.

When he had taken his seat on the bench, I opened the court, and called the first and only case.

It was not often we had a man to sit on, and we sat heavily on this one.

I put on my sternest look, and said "John Smithers"--here the prisoner instantly put one hand to his forehead and stood at "attention"-- "you are charged by the police with vagrancy, having no lawful visible means of support.

What have you to say to that charge?"

"I am a blacksmith looking for work," said the prisoner; "I ain't done nothing, your worship, and I don't want nothing."

"But you should do something," replied the magistrate; "we don't want idle vagabonds like you wandering about the country.

You will be sent to gaol for three months."

I stood up and reminded the justice respectfully that there was as yet no evidence against the prisoner, so, as a matter of form, he condescended to hear the constable, who went into the witness-box and proved his case to the hilt.

He had found the man at nightfall sitting under the shelter of some tea-tree sticks before a fire;

asked him what he was doing there; said he was camping out; had come from Melbourne looking for work; was a blacksmith; took him in charge as a vagrant, and locked him up; all his property was the clothes he wore, an old blanket, a tin billy, a clasp knife, a few crusts of bread, and old pipe, and half a fig of tobacco; could find no money about him.

That last fact settled the matter.

A man travelling about the bush without money is a deep-dyed criminal.

I had done it myself, and so was able to measure the extent of such wickedness.

I never felt really virtuous unless I had some money in my pocket.

"You are sentenced to imprisonment for three months in Melbourne gaol," said the magistrate; "and mind you don't come here again."

"I ain't done nothing, your worship," replied the prisoner; "and I don't want nothing."

"Take him away, constable."

Seven years afterwards, as I was riding home about sundown through Tarraville, I observed a solitary swagman sitting before a fire, among the ruins of an old public house, like Marius meditating among the ruins of Carthage.

There was a crumbling chimney built of bricks not worth carting away--the early bricks in South Gippsland were very bad, and the mortar had no visible lime in it--the ground was strewn with brick-bats, bottles, sardine tins, hoop iron, and other articles, the usual refuse of a bush shanty.

It had been, in the early times, a place reeking with crime and debauchery.

Men had gone out of it mad with drinking the poisonous liquor, had stumbled down the steep bank, and had ended their lives and crimes in the black Tarra river below.

Here the rising generation had taken their first lessons in vice from the old hands who made the house their favourite resort.

Here was planned the murder of Jimmy the Snob by Prettyboy and his mates, whose hut was near the end of the bridge across the river, and for which murder Prettyboy was hanged in Melbourne.

In the dusk I mistook the swagman for a stray aboriginal who had survived the destruction of his tribe, but on approaching nearer, I found that he was, or at least once had been, a white man.

He had gathered a few sticks, which he was breaking and putting on the fire.

I did not recognise him, did not think I had ever seen him before, and I rode away.

During the next twenty-four hours he had advanced about half-a-mile on his journey, and in the evening was making his fire in the Church paddock, near a small water-hole opposite my house.

I could see him from the verandah, and I sent Jim to offer him shelter in an outbuilding.

Jim was one of the two boys who had represented the public in the jury box at the Palmerston court seven years before.

He came back, and said the man declined the offer of shelter; never slept under a roof winter or summer, if he could help it; had lived in the open air for twelve years, and never stayed a night in any building, except for three months, when he was in Melbourne gaol.

He had been arrested by a constable near Palmerston seven years before, although he had done nothing, and a fool of a beak, with a long grey beard, had given him three months, while two puppies of boys were sitting in the jury box laughing at him.

He also gave some paternal advice to the youth, which, like a great deal of other paternal advice, was rejected as of no value.

"Never you go to Melbourne, young man," he said, "and if you do, never stop in any boarding-house, or public.

They are full of vermin, brought in by bad characters, mostly Government officers and bank clerks, who have been in Pentridge.

Don't you never go near 'em."

This advice did not sound very respectful; however, I overlooked it for the present, as it was not unlikely I might have the advantage of seeing him again in custody, and I sent to him across the road some hot tea, bread, butter, and beef.

This softened the heart and loosed the tongue of the old swagman.

It appeared from his account of himself that he was not much of a blacksmith.

He was ostensibly going about the colony looking for work, but as long as he could get food for nothing he did not want any work, and he always avoided a blacksmith's shop; as soon as he found himself near one he ceased to be a blacksmith.

When asked about his former life, he said a gentleman had once advised him to write the particulars of it, and had promised him half-a-crown if he would do so.

He had written some of them, but had never seen the gentleman again, so he did not get the half-crown; and now he would take sixpence for the copyright of his work.

I gave him sixpence, and he drew out a manuscript from an inside pocket of his coat, and handed it to me.

It was composed of small sheets of whitey-brown wrapping paper sewn together.

He had ruled lines on it, and had written his biography with lead pencil.

On looking over it I observed that, although he was deficient in some of the inferior qualifications of a great historian, such as spelling, grammar, and a command of words of seven syllables, yet he had the true instincts of a faithful chronicler.

He had carefully recorded the names of all the eminent bad men he had met, of the constable who had first arrested him, of the magistrate who had committed him for trial, of the judge who had sentenced him, of the gaolers and warders who had kept him in prison, of the captain, doctor, and officers of the ship which conveyed him to Sydney, of the squatters who had forced him to work for them, and of the scourgers who had scourged him for not working enough.

The names of all these celebrated men, together with the wicked deeds for which they were admired, were given in detail, after the true historic method.

We all take a great interestin reading every particular relating to the lives of notorious tyrants and great sinners; we like to know what clothes they wore, and how they swore.

But the lives of great and good men and women are very uninteresting; some young ladies even, when travelling by train, prefer, as I observe, French novels inspired by Cloacina to the "Lives of the Saints."

Some people in the colonies are said to have had no grandfathers; but John Smithers was even more deficient in pedigree, for he had neither father nor mother, as far as he could recollect.

He commenced life as a stable boy and general drudge in England, at a village inn owned and conducted by a widow named Cobbledick.

This widow had a daughter named Jemima.

The mischief wrought in this world by women, from Eve to Jemima downwards, is incalculable, and Smithers averred that it was this female, Jemima, who brought on his sorrow, grief, and woe.

She was very advanced in wordly science, as young ladies are apt to be when they are educated in the retail liquor trade.

When Smithers had been several years at the inn, and Jemima was already in her teens, she thought the world went slowly; she had no lover, there was nobody coming to marry her, nobody coming to woo.

But at length she was determined to find a remedy for this state of things.

She had never read the history of the loves of the great Catherine of Russia, nor of those of our own virgin Queen Elizabeth, but by an inborn royal instinct she was impelled to follow their high example.

If lovers did not offer their adoration to her charms spontaneously, there was at any rate one whose homage she could command.

One Sunday afternoon, while her mother was absent, she went to the stable and ordered Smithers to come and take a walk with her, directing him first to polish his shoes and put on his best clothes.

She brought out a bottle of scented oil to sweeten him, and told him to rub it well into his hair, and stroke his head with his hands until it was sleek and shiny.

She had put on her Sunday dress and best bonnet;

she had four ringlets at each side of her face; and to crown her charms, had ventured to borrow her mother's gold watch and chain.

Being now a perfect princess in stateliness and beauty, she took Jack by the arm--she called him Jack--and made him march away with her.

He was rather abashed at the new duty imposed upon him, but he had been so well kicked and cuffed all his life that he never thought of disobeying orders.

Love fooled the gods, and it gave him little trouble to fool so sorry a pair as Jack and his Jemima.

They walked along Perkins' Lane where many of the neighbours were likely to see them, for Jemima was anxious that all the other girls, her dearest friends, should be filled with spite and envy at her good fortune in having secured a lover.

When the happy youth and maid were returning with wandering steps and slow, Jemima saw her mother pass the end of the lane on her way homewards, much sooner than she had expected.

The golden hours on angel wings had flown away too quickly for the lovers.

Miss Cobbledick was filled with sudden alarm, and her brief day of glory was clouded.

It was now impossible to reach home in time to avoid trouble.

Her mother would be certain to miss the watch, and what was she to do with it?

What with Jack, and what with herself?

Self-preservation being the first law of nature, Jemima resolved to sacrifice Jack in order to shield herself from her mother's rage.

He was not of much account in any respect; so she gave him the watch and chain, telling him to keep them safely till she asked for them, and to hurry round by the yard gate into the stable.

This gave great relief to her conscience, and enabled her to meet her mother with a face of untroubled innocence.

Jack had not a lively imagination; but during the night he had a clear and blissful vision of his future destiny, the only dream of fortune his life was ever blessed with.

He was to be the landlord of the hotel, when Mrs. Cobbledick had gone to bliss, and Jemima was to be his bride, and the landlady.

But early next morning there was trouble in the house.

The watch was missing, and nobody knew anything about it.

Jemima helped her mother to look for it, and could not find it.

A constable was sent for, and he questioned everyone in and about the house, and searched everywhere without result.

Last of all Jack was asked if he knew anything of the missing watch.

He was faithful and true.

How could he betray Jemima, his future partner in life?

He said he "had never seen no watch, and didn't know nothing whatsomever about no watch," and the next instant the constable pulled the watch out of Jack's pocket.

At his trial he was asked what he had to say in his defence, and then he told the truth, and said Jemima gave him the watch to keep until she should ask for it.

But there is a time for all things; and Jack could never learn the proper time for telling the truth, or for telling a lie; he was always in the wrong.

The judge, in passing sentence, said he had aggravated his crime by endeavouring to implicate an innocent young lady in his villany, and gave him seven years.

He was taken on board a hulk, where he found two or three hundred other boys imprisoned.

On the evening of his arrival a report was circulated among them that they were all to be sent to another ship, which was bound for Botany Bay, and that they would never see England again.

They would have to work and sleep in chains; they would be yoked together, and whipped like bullocks; and if they escaped into the bush the blacks would kill and eat them.

As this dismal tale went round, some of the boys, who were quite young and small, began to cry, and to call for their mothers to come and help them; and then the others began to scream and should and yell.

The warders came below and tried to silence them, but the more they tried the louder grew the uproar, and it continued for many hours during the night.

"Britons rarely swerve From law, however stern, which tends their strength to serve."

Discipline must be maintained; so next morning the poor little beggars were brought up on deck in batches, stripped, triced up, and severely flogged.

Jack, and a number of other boys, said they had not cried at all, but the officer in charge thought it was better that a few of the innocent should suffer rather than that one of the guilty should escape, so they were all flogged alike, and soon after they were shipped for New South Wales.

On his arrival n Sydney, Jack was assigned as a servant to a squatter, and taken into the bush a long way to the west.

The weather had been very hot for a long time, all the grass had withered to dust, and the cattle were starving.

The first work which he was ordered to do was to climb trees and cut off the branches, in order that the cattle might keep themselves alive by eating the leaves and twigs.

Jack had never been used to handle an axe or tomahawk, so he found the labour of chopping very hard.

He did his best, but that was not good enough for the squatter, who took him to a magistrate, and had him flogged by the official scourger.

While serving his sentence of seven years he was flogged four times;

three of the times he said he had "done nothing," and for the fourth flogging he confessed to me that he had "done something," but he did not say what the "something" was.

In those days it seems that "doing nothing" and "doing something" were crimes equally meriting the lash.

And now after a long life of labour the old convict had achieved independence at last.

I don't think I ever met a richer man; he was richer than the whole family of the Rothschilds; he wanted scarcely anything.

Food and clothing he obtained for the asking for them, and he was not particular as to their quality of the quantity was sufficient.

Property to him was something despicable; he did not want any, and would not live inside of a house if he had one; he preferred the outside.

He was free from family cares--never had father or mother, sister or brother, wife or children.

No poor relatives ever claimed his hospitality; no intimate friends wanted to borrow half-a-crown; no one ever asked him to buy suburban lots, or to take shares in a limited liability company.

He was perfectly indifferent to all danger from bush-rangers, burglars, pickpockets, or cattle stealers; he did not even own a dog, so the dogman never asked him for the dog tax.

He never enquired about the state of the money market, nor bothered himself about the prices of land or cattle, wood, wine, or wheat.

Every bank, and brewery, and building society in the world might go into liquidation at once for aught he cared.

He had retired from the Government service, had superannuated himself on a pension of nothing per annum, and to draw it he required no voucher.

And yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, I don't think there are many men who would voluntarily choose his lot.

I watched him from the end of the verandah, and began speculating about him.

What was he thinking about during his solitary watches in the night or while he tramped alone through the bush year after year in heat and cold, wind and rain?

Did he ever think of anything--of his past life, or of his future lot?

Did he believe in or hope for a heaven?

or had he any fear of hell and eternal punishment?

Surely he had been punished enough; in this life he had endured evil things in plenty, and might at least hope for eternal rest in the next.

He was sitting with his back against a gum tree, and his feet towards the fire.

From time to time he threw a few more sticks on the embers, and a fitful blaze lit up his dark weatherbeaten face.

Then to my surprise he began to sing, and to sing well.

His voice was strong, clear, and mellow, and its tones rose and fell in the silent night air with a pathetic and wonderful sweetness.

The burden of his song was "We may be happy yet."

"Oh, smile as thou wert wont to smile, Before a weight of care Had crushed thine heart, and yet awhile Left only sorrow there;

We may be happy yet."

He sang three stanzas, and was silent.

Then someone said: "Poor old fellow; I hope he may be happy yet."

Next morning he was sitting with his back against the gum tree.

His fire had gone out, and he seemed to be late in awaking, and in no hurry to resume his journey.

But his travels were finished; he never awoke.

His body was quite cold, and he must have died soon after he had sung the last note of his song.

He had only sixpence in his pocket--the sixpence I had given him for his biography.

The police took him in charge once more and put him in his last prison, where he will remain until we shall all be called together by the dread blast of the Archangel's trumpet on the Judgment Day.

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