‘Videas tamen utrum loquar in ænigmate vel secundum veritatem.’ And,
further (which we translate): ‘He that would see these things shall have
the key that openeth and no man shutteth, and when he shall shut no man
is able to open again.’
‘But the secret—the secret!’ cried Hubert, impatiently, ‘let me know
what “these things” are!’
He hastily turned the leaf back and read again. The passage was that one
in the ‘_Epistola de Secretis_’ which spoke of the artificial thunder
and lightning, and beneath it was the full and precise recipe for its
composition. This at once explained the strange noises and the flashes
of light which he had so anxiously noticed. Surprising and gratifying as
this discovery might be, there was, Hubert thought, something beyond.
Roger Bacon, he reasoned, was not one to practise an experiment like
this for mere amusement. It was, he felt certain, a new form of
invocation, more potent, doubtless, over the beings of another world,
than any charm yet recorded. Be it as it might, he would try whether,
from the materials around him, it were not in his power to produce the
same result.
‘Here are all the necessary ingredients,’ he exclaimed; ‘this yellowish
powder is the well known sulphur, in which I daily bathe the
argent-vive; this bitter, glistening substance is the salt of the rock,
the _salis petræ_; and this black calcination, the third agent—But the
proportions are given, and here stands a glass cucurbit in which they
should be mingled. It is of the form my master mostly uses—round, with a
small neck and a narrow mouth, to be luted closely, without doubt. He
has often told me that the sole regenerating power of the universe is
heat; yonder furnace shall supply it, and then Hubert de Dreux is his
master’s equal!’
* * * * *
The short November day was drawing to a close, when, after carefully
tending the wounded sheriff, and leaving such instructions with the
Abingdon leech as he judged sufficient for his patient’s well-doing,
Roger Bacon again mounted his palfrey, and turned its head in the
direction of Oxford. He was unwilling to be a loiterer after dark, and
his beast was equally desirous to be once more comfortably housed, so
that his homeward journey was accomplished even more rapidly than his
morning excursion; and barely an hour had elapsed when the Friar drew
the rein at the foot of the last gentle eminence, close to which lay the
walls of the cloistered city. To give the animal breathing-space, he
rode quietly up the ascent, and then paused for a few moments before he
proceeded, his mind intent on subjects foreign to the speculations of
all his daily associations.
Suddenly, as he mused on his latest discovery, and calculated to what
principal object it might be devoted, a stream of fiery light shot
rapidly athwart the dark, drear sky, and before he had space to think
what the meteor might portend, a roar as of thunder shook the air, and
simultaneous with it, a shrill, piercing scream, mingled with the
fearful sound; then burst forth a volume of flame, and on the wind came
floating a sulphurous vapour which, to him alone, revealed the nature of
the explosion he had just witnessed.
‘Gracious God!’ he exclaimed, while the cold sweat poured like
rain-drops down his forehead, ‘the fire has caught the fulminating
powder! But what meant that dreadful cry? Surely nothing of human life
has suffered! The boy Hubert,—but, no,—he was at work at the further
extremity of the building. But this is no time for vain conjecture,—let
me learn the worst at once!’
And with these words he urged his affrighted steed to its best pace, and
rode rapidly into the city.
All was consternation there: the tremendous noise had roused every
inhabitant, and people were hurrying to and fro, some hastening towards
the place from whence the sound had proceeded, others rushing wildly
from it. It was but too evident that a dreadful catastrophe, worse even
than Bacon dreaded, had happened. It was with difficulty he made his way
through the crowd, and came upon the ruin which still blazed fiercely,
appalling the stoutest of heart. There was a tumult of voices, but above
the outcries of the affrighted monks, and of the scared multitude, rose
the loud voice of the Friar, calling upon them to extinguish the flames.
This appeal turned all eyes towards him, and then associating him with
an evil, the cause of which they were unable to comprehend, the
maledictions of the monks broke forth.
‘Seize the accursed magician,’ they shouted; ‘he has made a fiery
compact with the demon! Already one victim is sacrificed,—our turn will
come next! See, here are the mangled limbs of his pupil, Hubert de
Dreux! The fiend has claimed his reward, and borne away his soul. Seize
on the wicked sorcerer, and take him to a dungeon!’
Roger Bacon sate stupified by the unexpected blow; he had no power, if
he had possessed the will, to offer the slightest resistance to the fury
of the enraged Franciscans, who, in the true spirit of ignorance, had
ever hated him for his acquirements. With a deep sigh for the fate of
the young man, whose imprudence he now saw had been the cause of this
dreadful event, he yielded himself up to his enemies; they tore him from
his palfrey, and with many a curse, and many a buffet, dragged him to
the castle, and lodged him in one of its deepest dungeons.
The flames from the ruined cell died out of themselves; but those which
the envy and dread of Bacon’s genius had kindled, were never
extinguished, but with his life.
In the long years of imprisonment which followed—the doom of the stake
being averted only by powerful intercession with the Pope—Bacon had
leisure to meditate on the value of all he had done to enlarge the
understanding and extend the knowledge of his species. ‘The prelates and
friars,’ he wrote in a letter which still remains, ‘have kept me
starving in close prison, nor will they suffer anyone to come to me,
fearing lest my writings should come to any other than the Pope and
themselves.’
He reflected that of all living men he stood well nigh alone in the
consciousness that in the greatest of his inventions he had produced a
discovery of incalculable value, but one for which on every account the
time was not ripe.
‘I will not die,’ he said, ‘without leaving to the world the evidence
that the secret was known to me whose marvellous power future ages shall
acknowledge. But not yet shall it be revealed. Generations must pass
away and the minds of men become better able to endure the light of
science, before they can profit by my discovery. Let him who already
possesses knowledge, guess the truth these words convey.’
And in place of the directions by which Hubert de Dreux had been guided,
he altered the sentence as follows:—
‘Sed tamen salis petræ,
LURU MONE CAP UBRE
et sulphuris.’
The learned have found that these mystical words conceal the anagram of
_Carbonum pulvere_, the third ingredient in the composition of
Gunpowder.
“A GOOD PLAIN COOK.”
‘WANTED, a good plain Cook,’ is hungrily echoed from the columns of the
_Times_, by half the husbands and bachelors of Great Britain. According
to the true meaning of the words ‘A good plain Cook’—to judge from the
unskilful manner in which domestic cookery is carried on throughout the
length and breadth of the land—is a very great rarity. But the
conventional and the true meaning of the expression widely differ.
‘What is commonly self-called a plain cook,’ says a writer in the
_Examiner_, ‘is a cook who spoils food for low wages. She is a cook, not
because she knows anything about cookery, but because she prefers the
kitchen-fire to scrubbing floors, polishing grates, or making beds. A
cook who can boil a potato and dress a mutton-chop is one in a
thousand.’
Such very plain cooks will always exist for dyspeptic purposes, while
those who are in authority over them remain ignorant of an art which,
however much it may be slighted, exercises a crowning influence over
health and happiness. Eat we must; and it is literally a subject of
vital importance whether what we eat be properly adapted for healthful
digestion or not.
Medical statistics tell us that of all diseases with which the English
are afflicted, those arising directly or indirectly from impaired
digestive organs are the most prevalent. We are falsely accused in
consequence of over-eating; but the true cause of our ailments is bad
cooking. A Frenchman or a German devours much more at one of his own
inexhaustible _tables-d’hôte_ than an Englishman consumes at his
dining-table—and with impunity; for the foreigner’s food being properly
prepared is easily digested. ‘The true difference,’ says a pleasant
military writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, ‘between English and foreign
cookery is just this: in preparing butcher’s meat for the table, the aim
of foreign cookery is to make it tender, of English to make it hard. And
both systems equally effect their object, in spite of difficulties on
each side. The butcher’s meat, which you buy abroad, is tough,
coarse-grained, and stringy; yet foreign cookery sends this meat to
table tender. The butcher’s meat which you buy in England is tender
enough when it comes home; but domestic cookery sends it up hard. Don’t
tell me the hardness is in the meat itself. Nothing of the kind; it’s
altogether an achievement of the English cuisine. I appeal to a leg of
mutton, I appeal to a beef-steak, as they usually come to table; the
beef half-broiled, the mutton half-roasted. Judge for yourself. The
underdone portion of each is tender; the portion that’s dressed is hard.
Argal, the hardness is due to the dressing, not to the meat: it is a
triumph of domestic cookery. Engage a “good plain cook”—tell her to boil
a neck of mutton, that will show you what I mean. All London necks of
mutton come to table crescents, regularly curled.’
This is but too true: the real art of stewing is almost unknown in Great
Britain, and even in Ireland, despite the fame of an ‘Irish stew.’
Everything that is not roasted or fried, is boiled, ‘a gallop,’ till the
quality of tenderness is consolidated to the consistency of caoutchouc.
Such a thing as a stewpan is almost unknown in houses supported by less
than from three to five hundred a year.
These gastronomic grievances are solely due to neglected education. M.
Alexis Soyer, with a touch of that quiet irony which imparts to satire
its sharpest sting, dedicated his last Cookery-book ‘to the daughters of
Albion.’ Having some acquaintance with their deficiencies, he laid his
book slyly at their feet to drop such a hint as is conveyed when a
dictionary is handed to damsels who blunder in orthography, or when
watches are presented to correct unpunctuality. It is to be feared,
however, that ‘the daughters of Albion’ were too busy with less
useful—though to them scarcely less essential—accomplishments, to profit
by his hint. Cookery is a subject they have never been taught to regard
as worthy of their attention: rather, indeed, as one to be avoided; for
it is never discussed otherwise than apologetically, with a simpering
sort of jocularity, or as something which it is ‘low’ to know anything
about. When a certain diplomatist was reminded that his mother had been
a cook, he did not deny the fact; but assured the company, ‘upon his
honour, that she was a very bad one.’ People in the best society do not
hesitate to bore others with their ailments, and talk about cures and
physic; but conversation respecting prevention—which is better than
cure—and wholesomely prepared food is tabooed.
Young ladies of the leisure classes are educated to become uncommonly
acute critics of all that pertains to personal blandishment. They keep
an uncompromisingly tight hand over their milliners and ladies’ maids.
They can tell to a thread when a flounce is too narrow or a tuck too
deep. They are taught to a shade what colours suit their respective
complexions, and to a hair how their _coiffure_ ought to be arranged.
Woe unto the seamstress or handmaiden who sins in these matters! But her
‘good plain cook’—when a damsel is promoted to wedlock, and owns
one—passes unreproached for the most heinous offences. Badly seasoned
and ill assimilated soup; fish, without any fault of the fishmonger,
soft and flabby; meat rapidly roasted before fierce fires—burnt outside
and raw within; poultry rendered by the same process tempting to the
eye, till dissection reveals red and uncooked joints! These crimes, from
their frequency and the ignorance of ‘the lady of the house,’ remain
unpunished. Whereupon, husbands, tired of their Barmecide feasts—which
disappoint the taste more because they have often a promising look to
the eye—prefer better fare at their clubs; and escape the Scylla of bad
digestion, to be wrecked on the Charybdis of domestic discord. All this
is owing to the wife’s culinary ignorance, and to your ‘Good Plain
Cooks.’
We do not say that the daughters of the wealthy and well to do should be
submitted to regular kitchen apprenticeships, and taught the details of
cookery, any more than that they should learn to make shoes or to fit
and sew dresses. But it is desirable that they should acquire
_principles_—such principles as would enable them to apply prompt
correction to the errors of their hired cooks. It is no very bold
assertion that were such a knowing and judicious supervision generally
exercised, the stomach diseases, under which half our nation is said to
groan, would be materially abated.
Let us take a step or two lower in the ladder of English life, where
circumstances oblige the Good Plain Cook and the wife to be one and the
same person. Many a respectable clerk, and many a small farmer, is
doomed from one year’s end to another to a wearying disproportion of
cold, dry, uncomfortable dinners, because his wife’s knowledge of
cookery takes no wider range than that which pertains to the roasted,
boiled, and fried. Thousands of artisans and labourers are deprived of
half the actual nutriment of food, and of all the legitimate pleasures
of the table, because their better halves—though good plain cooks, in
the ordinary acceptation of the term—are in utter darkness as to
economising, and rendering palatable the daily sustenance of their
families. ‘If we could see,’ says a writer before quoted, ‘by the help
of an Asmodeus what is going on at the dinner-hour of the humbler of the
middle class, what a spectacle of discomfort, waste, ill-temper, and
consequent ill-conduct, it would be! The man quarrels with his wife
because there is nothing he can eat, and he generally makes up in drink
for the deficiencies in the article of food. Gin is the consolation to
the spirits and the resource to the baulked appetite. There is thus not
only the direct waste of food and detriment to health, but the farther
consequent waste of the use of spirits, with its injury to the habits
and the health. On the other hand, people who eat well drink moderately;
the satisfaction of appetite with relish dispensing with recourse to
stimulants. Good-humour, too, and good health follow a good meal, and by
a good meal we mean anything, however simple, well dressed in its way. A
rich man may live very expensively and very ill, and a poor one very
frugally but very well, if it be his good fortune to have a good cook in
his wife or his servant; and a ministering angel a good cook is, either
in the one capacity or the other, not only to those in humble
circumstances, but to many above them of the class served by what are
self-termed professed cooks, which is too frequently an affair of
profession purely, and who are to be distinguished from plain cooks only
in this, that they require larger wages for spoiling food, and spoil
much more in quantity, and many other articles to boot.’
Great would be the advantage to the community, if cookery were made a
branch of female education. To the poor, the gain would be incalculable.
‘Amongst the prizes which the Bountifuls of both sexes are fond of
bestowing in the country,’ we again quote the _Examiner_, ‘we should
like to see some offered for the best-boiled potato, the best-grilled
mutton-chop, and the best-seasoned hotch-potch soup or broth. In writing
of a well-boiled potato, we are aware that we shall incur the contempt
of many for attaching importance to a thing they suppose to be so
common; but the fact is, that their contempt arises, as is often the
origin of contempt, from their ignorance, there not being one person in
ten thousand who has ever seen and tasted that great rarity—a
well-boiled potato.’
This is scarcely an exaggeration. The importance attached to the point
by the highest gastronomic authorities, is shown by what took place,
some years since, at the meeting of a Pall Mall Club Committee specially
called for the selection of a cook. The candidates were an Englishman,
from the Albion Tavern, and a Frenchman recommended by Ude. The eminent
divine who presided in right of distinguished connoisseurship put the
first question to the candidates. It was this:—‘Can you boil a potato?’
Let us hope that these hints will fructify and be improved upon, and
that the first principles of cooking will become, in some way, a part of
female education. In schools, however, this will be difficult. It can
only be a branch of household education; and until it does so become, we
shall continue to be afflicted with ‘Good Plain Cooks.’
TWO-HANDED DICK THE STOCKMAN.
AN ADVENTURE IN THE BUSH.
Travelling in the Bush one rainy season, I put up for the night at a
small weatherbound inn, perched half way up a mountain range, where
several Bush servants on the tramp had also taken refuge from the
downpouring torrents. I had had a long and fatiguing ride over a very
bad country, so, after supper, retired into the furthest corner of the
one room that served for ‘kitchen, and parlour, and all,’ and there,
curled up in my blanket, in preference to the bed offered by our host,
which was none of the cleanest; with half-shut eyes, I glumly puffed at
my pipe in silence, allowing the hubble-bubble of the Bushmen’s gossip
to flow through my unnoting ears.
Fortunately for my peace, the publican’s stock of rum had been some time
exhausted, and as I was the latest comer, all the broiling and frying
had ceased, but a party sat round the fire, evidently set in for a spell
at ‘yarning.’ At first the conversation ran in ordinary channels, such
as short reminiscences of old world rascality, perils in the Bush. Till
at length a topic arose which seemed to have a paramount interest for
all. This was the prowess of a certain Two-Handed Dick the Stockman.
‘Yes, yes; I’ll tell you what it is, mates,’ said one; ‘this confounded
reading and writing, that don’t give plain fellows like you and me a
chance;—now, if it were to come to fighting for a living, I don’t care
whether it was half-minute time and London rules, rough and tumble, or
single stick, or swords and bayonets, or tomahawks,—I’m dashed if you
and me, and Two-Handed Dick, wouldn’t take the whole Legislative
Council, the Governor and Judges—one down ’tother come on. Though, to be
sure, Dick could thrash any two of us.’
I was too tired to keep awake, and dozed off, to be again and again
disturbed with cries of ‘Bravo, Dick!’ ‘That’s your sort!’ ‘Houray,
Dick!’ all signifying approval of that individual’s conduct in some
desperate encounter, which formed the subject of a stirring narrative.
For months after that night this idea of Two-Handed Dick haunted me, but
the bustle of establishing a new station at length drove it out of my
head.
I suppose a year had elapsed from the night when the fame of the
double-fisted stockman first reached me. I had to take a three days’
journey to buy a score of fine-woolled rams, through a country quite new
to me, which I chose because it was a short cut recently discovered. I
got over, the first day, forty-five miles comfortably. The second day,
in the evening, I met an ill-looking fellow walking with a broken
musket, and his arm in a sling. He seemed sulky, and I kept my hand on
my double-barrelled pistol all the time I was talking to him; he begged
a little tea and sugar, which I could not spare, but I threw him a fig
of tobacco. In answer to my questions about his arm, he told me, with a
string of oaths, that a bull, down in some mimosa flats, a day’s journey
a-head, had charged him, flung him into a water-hole, broken his arm,
and made him lose his sugar and tea bag. Bulls in Australia are
generally quiet, but this reminded me that some of the Highland black
cattle imported by the Australian Company, after being driven off by a
party of Gully Rakees (cattle stealers), had escaped into the mountains
and turned quite wild. Out of this herd, which was of a breed quite
unsuited to the country, a bull sometimes, when driven off by a stronger
rival, would descend to the mimosa flats, and wander about, solitary and
dangerously fierce.
It struck me as I rode off, that it was quite as well my friend’s arm
and musket had been disabled, for he did not look the sort of man it
would be pleasant to meet in a thicket of scrub, if he fancied the horse
you rode. So, keeping one eye over my shoulder, and a sharp look-out for
any other traveller of the same breed, I rode off at a brisk pace. I
made out afterwards that my foot friend was Jerry Jonson, hung for
shooting a bullock-driver, the following year.
At sun-down, when I reached the hut where I had intended to sleep, I
found it deserted, and so full of fleas, I thought it better to camp
out; so I hobbled out old Grey-tail on the best piece of grass I could
find which was very poor indeed.
The next morning when I went to look for my horse he was nowhere to be
found. I put the saddle on my head and tracked him for hours, it was
evident the poor beast had been travelling away in search of grass. I
walked until my feet were one mass of blisters; at length, when about to
give up the search in despair, having quite lost the track on stony
ground, I came upon the marks quite fresh in a bit of swampy ground, and
a few hundred yards further found Master Grey-tail rolling in the mud of
a nearly dry water-hole as comfortably as possible. I put down the
saddle and called him; at that moment I heard a loud roar and crash in a
scrub behind me, and out rushed at a terrific pace a black Highland bull
charging straight at me. I had only just time to throw myself on one
side flat on the ground as he thundered by me. My next move was to
scramble among a small clump of trees, one of great size, the rest were
mere saplings.
The bull having missed his mark, turned again, and first revenged
himself by tossing my saddle up in the air, until fortunately it lodged
in some bushes; then, having smelt me out, he commenced a circuit round
the trees, stamping, pawing, and bellowing frightfully. With his red
eyes and long sharp horns he looked like a demon; I was quite unarmed,
having broken my knife the day before; my pistols were in my holsters,
and I was wearied to death. My only chance consisted in dodging him
round the trees until he should be tired out. Deeply did I regret having
left my faithful dogs Boomer and Bounder behind.
The bull charged again and again, sometimes coming with such force
against the tree that he fell on his knees, sometimes bending the
saplings behind which I stood until his horns almost touched me. There
was not a branch I could lay hold of to climb up. How long this awful
game of ‘_touchwood_’ lasted, I know not; it seemed hours; after the
first excitement of self-preservation passed off, weariness again took
possession of me, and it required all the instinct of self-preservation
to keep me on my feet; several times the bull left me for a few seconds,
pacing suddenly away, bellowing his malignant discontent; but before I
could cross over to a better position he always came back at full speed.
My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, my eyes grew hot and misty, my
knees trembled under me, I felt it impossible to hold out until dark. At
length I grew desperate, and determined to make a run for the opposite
covert the moment the bull turned towards the water-hole again. I felt
sure I was doomed, and thought of it until I grew indifferent. The bull
seemed to know I was worn out, and grew more fierce and rapid in his
charges, but just when I was going to sit down under the great tree and
let him do his worst, I heard the rattle of a horse among the rocks
above, and a shout that sounded like the voice of an angel. Then came
the barking of a dog, and the loud reports of a stockwhip, but the bull
with his devilish eyes fixed on me, never moved.
Up came a horseman at full speed; crack fell the lash on the black
bull’s hide; out spirted the blood in a long streak. The bull turned
savagely—charged the horseman. The horse wheeled round just enough to
baffle him—no more—again the lash descended, cutting like a long
flexible razor, but the mad bull was not to be beaten off by a whip: he
charged again and again; but he had met his match; right and left, as
needed, the horse turned, sometimes pivotting on his hind, sometimes on
his fore-legs.
The stockman shouted something, leapt from his horse, and strode forward
to meet the bull with an open knife between his teeth. As the beast
lowered his head to charge, he seemed to catch him by the horns. There
was a struggle, a cloud of dust, a stamping like two strong men
wrestling—I could not see clearly; but the next moment the bull was on
his back, the blood welling from his throat, his limbs quivering in
death.
The stranger, covered with mud and dust, came to me, saying as
unconcernedly as if he had been killing a calf in a slaughter-house,
‘He’s dead enough, young man; he won’t trouble anybody any more.’
I walked two or three paces toward the dead beast; my senses left me—I
fainted.
When I came to myself, my horse was saddled, bridled, and tied up to a
bush. My stranger friend was busy flaying the bull.
‘I should like to have a pair of boots out of the old devil,’ he
observed, in answer to my enquiring look, ‘before the dingoes and the
eagle hawks dig into his carcase.’
We rode out of the flats up a gentle ascent, as night was closing in. I
was not in talking humour; but I said, ‘You have saved my life.’
‘Well, I rather think I have’ but this was muttered in an under tone;
‘it’s not the first I have saved, or taken either, for that matter.’
I was too much worn out for thanking much, but I pulled out a silver
hunting-watch and put it into his hand. He pushed it back, almost
roughly, saying, ‘No, Sir, not now; I shalln’t take money or money’s
worth for that, though I may ask something some time. It’s nothing,
after all. I owed the old black devil a grudge for spoiling a blood
filly of mine; beside, though I didn’t know it when I rode up first, and
went at the beast to take the devil out of myself as much as anything,—I
rather think that you are the young gentleman that ran through the Bush
at night to Manchester Dan’s hut, when his wife was bailed up by the
Blacks, and shot one-eyed Jackey, in spite of the Governor’s
proclamation.’
‘You seem to know me,’ I answered; ‘pray may I ask who you are, if it is
a fair question, for I cannot remember ever having seen you before.’
‘Oh, they call me “Two-handed Dick,” in this country.’
The scene in the roadside inn flashed on my recollection. Before I could
say another word, a sharp turn round the shoulder of the range we were
traversing, brought us in sight of the fire of a shepherd’s hut. The
dogs ran out barking; we hallooed and cracked our whips, and the
hut-keeper came to meet us with a fire-stick in his hand.
‘Lord bless my heart and soul! Dick, is that thee at last? Well, I
thought thee were’t never coming;’ cried the hut-keeper, a little man,
who came limping forward very fast with the help of a crutch-handled
stick. ‘I say, Missis, Missis, here’s Dick, here’s Two-handed Dick.’
This was uttered in a shrill, hysterical sort of scream. Out came
‘Missis’ at the top of her speed, and began hugging Dick as he was
getting off his horse, her arms reached a little above his waist,
laughing and crying, both at the same time, while her husband kept fast
hold of the Stockman’s hand, muttering, ‘Lord, Dick, I’m so glad to see
thee.’ Meanwhile the dogs barking, and a flock of weaned lambs just
penned, ba’aing, made such a riot, that I was fairly bewildered. So,
feeling myself one too many, I slipped away, leading off both the horses
to the other side the hut, where I found a shepherd, who showed me a
grass paddock to feed the nags a bit before turning them out for the
night. I said to him, ‘What _is_ the meaning of all this going on
between your mate and his wife, and the big Stockman?’
‘The meaning, Stranger; why, that’s Two-handed Dick, and my mate is
little Jemmy that he saved, and Charley Anvils at the same time, when
the Blacks slaughtered the rest of the party, near on a dozen of them.’
On returning, I found supper smoking on the table, and we had made a
regular ‘Bush’ meal. The Stockman then told my adventure, and, when they
had exchanged all the news, I had little difficulty in getting the
hut-keeper to the point I wanted; the great difficulty lay in preventing
man and wife from telling the same story at the same time. However, by
judicious management, I was able to gather the following account of
_Two-handed Dick’s Fight and Ride_.
‘When first I met Dick he was second Stockman to Mr. Ronalds, and I took
a shepherd’s place there; it was my second place in this country, for
you see I left the Old Country in a bad year for the weaving trade, and
was one of the first batch of free emigrants that came out, the rest
were chiefly Irish. I found shepherding suit me very well, and my Missis
was hut-keeper. Well, Dick and I got very thick; I used to write his
letters for him, and read in an evening and so on. Well, though I
undertook a shepherd’s place I soon found I could handle an axe pretty
well. Throwing the shuttle gives the use of the arms, you see, and Dick
put into my head that I could make more money if I took to making
fences; I sharpening the rails and making the mortice-holes, and a
stranger man setting them. I did several jobs at odd times, and was
thought very handy. Well, Mr. Ronalds, during the time of the great
drought five years ago, determined to send up a lot of cattle to the
North, where he had heard there was plenty of water and grass, and form
a Station there. Dick was picked out as Stockman; a young gentleman, a
relation of Mr. Ronalds, went as head of the party, a very foolish,
conceited young man, who knew very little of Bush life, and would not be
taught. There were eight splitters and fencers, besides Charley Anvils,
the blacksmith, and two bullock drivers.
‘I got leave to go because I wanted to see the country and Dick asked.
My missis was sorely against my going. I was to be storekeeper, as well
as do any farming; and work if wanted.
‘We had two drays, and were well armed. We were fifteen days going up
before we got into the new country, and then we travelled five days;
sometimes twenty-four hours without water; and sometimes had to unload
the drays two or three times a day, to get over creeks. The fifth day we
came to very fine land; the grass met over our horses’ necks, and the
river was a chain of water-holes, all full, and as clear as crystal. The
kangaroos were hopping about as plentiful as rabbits in a warren; and
the grass by the river side had regular tracks of the emus, where they
went down to drink.
‘We had been among signs of the Blacks too, for five days, but had not
seen anything of them, although we could hear the devils cooing at
nightfall, calling to each other. We kept regular watch and watch at
first—four sentinels, and every man sleeping with his gun at hand.
‘Now, as it was Dick’s business to tail (follow) the cattle,
five-hundred head, I advised him to have his musket sawed off in the
barrel, so as to be a more handy size for using on horseback. He took my
advice; and Charley Anvils made a very good job of it, so that he could
bring it under his arm when hanging at his back from a rope sling, and
fire with one hand. It was lucky I thought of it, as it turned out.
‘At length the overseer fixed on a spot for the Station. It was very
well for water and grass, and a very pretty view, as he said, but it was
too near a thicket where the Blacks would lie in ambush, for safety. The
old Bushmen wanted it planted on a neck of land, where the waters
protected it all but one side, and there a row of fence would have made
it secure.
‘Well, we set to work, and soon had a lot of tall trees down. Charley
put up his forge and his grindstone, to keep the axe sharp, and I staid
with him. Dick went tailing the cattle, and the overseer sat on a log
and looked on. The second day a mob of Blacks came down on the opposite
side of the river. They were quite wild, regular _myals_, but some of
our men with green branches, went and made peace with them. They liked
our bread and sugar; and after a short time we had a lot of them helping
to draw rails, fishing for us, bringing wild honey, kangaroos, rats, and
firewood, in return for butter and food, so we began to be less careful
about our arms. We gave them iron tomahawks, and they soon found out
that they could cut out an opossum from a hollow in half-an-hour with
one of our tomahawks, while it took a day with one of their own stone
ones.
‘And so the time passed very pleasantly. We worked away. The young men
and gins worked for us. The chiefs adorned themselves with the trinkets
and clothes we gave them, and fished and hunted, and admired themselves
in the river.
‘Dick never trusted them; he stuck to his cattle; he warned us not to
trust them, and the overseer called him a bloodthirsty murdering
blackguard for his pains.
‘One day, the whole party were at work, chopping and trimming
weather-boards for the hut; the Blacks helping as usual. I was turning
the grindstone for Charley Anvils, and Dick was coming up to the dray to
get some tea, but there was a brow of a hill between him and us; the
muskets were all piled in one corner. I heard a howl, and then a
scream—our camp was full of armed Blacks. When I raised my head, I saw
the chief, Captain Jack we called him, with a broad axe in his hand, and
the next minute he had chopped the overseer’s head clean off; in two
minutes all my mates were on the ground. Three or four came running up
to us; one threw a spear at me, which I half parried with a pannikin I
was using to wet the grindstone, but it fixed deep in my hip, and part
of it I believe is there still. Charley Anvils had an axe in his hand,
and cut down the first two fellows that came up to him, but he was
floored in a minute with twenty wounds. They were so eager to kill me,
that one of them, luckily, or I should not have been alive now, cut the
spear in my hip short off. Another, a young lad I had sharpened a
tomahawk for a few days before, chopped me across the head; you can see
the white hair. Down I fell, and nothing could have saved us, but the
other savages had got the tarpaulin off, and were screaming with
delight, plundering the drays, which called my enemies off. Just then,
Dick came in sight. He saw what was the matter; but although there were
more than a hundred black devils, all armed, painted, bloody, and
yelling, he never stopped or hesitated, but rode slap through the camp,
fired bang among them, killing two, and knocking out the brains of
another. As he passed by a top rail, where an axe was sticking, he
caught it up. The men in the camp were dead enough; the chief warriors
had made the rush there, and every one was pierced with several spears,
or cut down from close behind by axes in the hands of the chiefs. We,
being further off, had been attacked by the boys only. Dick turned
towards us, and shouted my name; I could not answer, but I managed to
sit up an instant; he turned towards me, leaned down, caught me by the
jacket, and dragged me on before him like a log. Just then Charley, who
had crept under the grindstone, cried “Oh, Dick, don’t leave me!” As he
said that, a lot of them came running down, for they had seen enough to
know that, unless they killed us all, their job would not be half-done.
As Dick turned to face them, they gave way and flung spears, but they
could not hurt him; they managed to get between us and poor Charley.
Dick rode back a circuit, and dropped me among some bushes on a hill,
where I could see all. Four times he charged through and through a whole
mob, with an axe in one hand and his short musket in the other. He cut
them down right and left, as if he had been mowing; he scared the
wretches, although the old women kept screeching and urging them on, as
they always do. At length, by help of his stirrup leather, he managed to
get Charley up behind him. He never could have done it, but his mare
fought, and bit, and turned when he bid her, so he threw the bridle on
her neck, and could use that terrible left arm of his. Well, he came up
to the hill and lifted me on, and away we went for three or four miles,
but we knew the mare could not stand it long, so Dick got off and
walked. When the Blacks had pulled the drays’ loads to pieces, they
began to follow us, but Dick never lost heart’—
‘Nay, mate,’ interrupted Dick, ‘once I did; I shall never forget it,
when I came to put my last bullet in, it was too big.’
‘Good heavens,’ I exclaimed, ‘what did you do?’
‘Why, I put the bullet in my mouth, and kept chawing and chawing it, and
threatening the black devils all the while until at last it was small
enough, and then I rammed it down, and dropped on my knee and waited
until they came within twenty yards, and then I picked off Captain Jack,
the biggest villain of them all.’
Here Dick, being warmed, continued the story:—‘We could not stop; we
marched all evening and all night, and when the two poor creturs cried
for water, as they did most of the night, as often as I could I filled
my boots, and gave them to drink. I led the horse, and travelled seventy
miles without halting for more than a minute or two. Toward the last
they were as helpless as worn-out sheep. I tied them on. We had the luck
to fall in with a party travelling just when the old mare was about
giving in, and then we must all have died for want of water. Charley
Anvils had eighteen wounds, but, except losing two fingers, is none the
worse. Poor Jemmy, there, will never be fit for anything but a
hut-keeper; as for me, I had some scratches—nothing to hurt; and the old
mare lost an ear. I went back afterwards with the police, and squared
accounts with the Blacks.
‘And so you see, Stranger, the old woman thinks I saved her old man’s
life, although I would have done as much for any one; but I believe
there are some gentlemen in Sydney think I ought to have been hung for
what I did. Anyhow, since that scrimmage in the Bush, they always call
me “TWO-HANDED DICK.”’
Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.
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